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THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 


THE  ADVANCE 
OF  WOMAN 

FROM  THE  EARLIEST  TIMES 
TO  THE  PRESENT 


BY 

JANE    JOHNSTONE    CHRISTIE 


PHILADELPHIA   &    LONDON 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

19H 


COPTBIQHT,    iglZ.BT   J.  B.    LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY 


PUBLISHED   SEPTEMBER,  I912 


PRINTED   BY   J.  B.   LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY 

AT  THE    WASHINGTON    SQUARE    FBBSB 

PBILADELFHIA,  V.  S.  A. 


THIS  BOOK 
IS  DEDICATED  TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

MY  FATHER 

WHOSE  ATTITUDE  TOWARDS  WOMAN 

WAS  FAR  IN  ADVANCE 

OF  HIS  AGE 


PREFACE 

In  presenting  this  book  to  the  public  I  have  been 
actuated  by  a  keen  desire  to  set  before  both  men  and 
women  a  continuous  picture  of  society  from  early 
times  to  the  present  day.  Most  of  the  facts  it 
contains  are  known  to  all  reading  people,  but  they 
are  known  as  isolated  facts  and  as  such  have  no 
significance.  We  all  know  something  of  the  sub- 
jection of  woman  in  Oriental  countries,  but  we  do 
not  realise  that  woman  in  Western  lands  passed 
through  similar  phases  and  is  only  recently  emerging 
from  a  position  of  horrible  humiliation,  and  what 
is  more  important  still  neither  men  nor  women  realise 
how  terrible  the  consequences  have  been  to  the  human 
family. 

We  are  such  creatures  of  the  passing  hour,  we 
leave  the  past  behind  the  moment  it  is  over,  we  live 
in  our  little  groove  of  to-day,  and  we  resent  the 
larger  life  and  liberty  of  to-morrow.  We  do  not 
stop  to  realise  that  the  sins  of  nations  must  be  ren- 
dered account  of  a,s  well  as  those  of  individuals,  that 
the  mistakes  of  centuries  and  generations  are  piled 
up  to  be  an  incubus  on  those  still  to  come.  We  do 
not  stop  to  realise  that  the  present  is  only  a  link 
in  the  chain  of  time  bound  by  consequences  to  the 

r 


PREFACE 

past  and  laying  the  foundations  of  consequences  for 
the  future  to  reap.  The  only  facts  that  are  living 
and  pregnant  are  those  which  bring  a  lesson,  the 
only  good  of  the  past  is  to  enable  us  to  better  guide 
the  present;  and  past  history,  sociological,  political 
and  legal,  philosophically  understood  ought  to  be 
the  light  to  direct  our  steps. 

This  is  the  message  which  this  book  has  endeavoured 
to  set  forth.  It  may  seem  to  be  unduly  harsh  to  man, 
but  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  author  is  not 
responsible  for  the  picture  of  history,  nor  for  the 
laws  on  the  statute  books.  I  have  only  told  a  part  of 
the  tale  and  my  object  is  neither  to  lower  man  nor 
to  raise  woman  on  a  pedestal,  but  simply  to  call 
attention  to  the  biological  plan  of  the  Almighty,  the 
only  thing  that  "justifies  God's  ways  to  man,"  and 
to  enable  us — men  and  women — to  see  the  truth  that 
we  may  get  into  harmony  with  the  divine  and  not 
forever  continue  "to  kick  against  the  pricks." 

I  have  drawn  freely  upon  the  labours  of  others, 
especially  those  of  Mr.  Darwin,  Mr.  Morgan,  Mr. 
Lester  F.  Ward,  Eliza  Burt  Gamble,  John  Stuart 
Mill  and  others  to  whom  I  am  greatly  indebted. 

I  trust  that  no  one  who  commences  the  book  will 
lay  it  down  without  hearing  it  to  the  close,  and  if 
it  enables  us  to  see  our  way  a  little  more  clearly  it 
will   have   fulfilled   its  mission.  J.   J.    C. 

8 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface 7 

I.     Mankind's  Dumb  Progenitors 11 

II.     Early  Society  and  the  Matriarchate 56 

III.  The  Patriarchate  and  the  Historical  Period.  .  95 

iAv.    Man  as  Ruler 135 

v/V.    Man  a  Social  Coward 162 

VI.    Woman  as  Man  Has  Made  Her 210 

VII.  Evil  Consequences  of  Woman's  Degradation.  .  238 

VIII.     What  Woman  Has  Done 271 

IX.    A  Last  Word 328 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

FROM    THE    EARLIEST 
TIMES  TO  THE  PRESENT 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

For  countless  ages  the  world  has  been  struggling 
with  the  problem  of  the  relative  importance  of  the 
sexes,  and  the  question  seems  as  unsolved  as  it  was 
when  it  began.  Indeed,  it  looks  as  though  a  satis- 
factory solution  could  never  be  reached,  for  every 
argument  in  favour  of  the  superior  qualities  of  the 
one,  can  be  met  with  a  counter  argument  for  the 
other,  equally  as  forceful  and  conclusive,  and  as  the 
problem  is  out  of  the  realm  of  the  exact  sciences  it 
does  not  lend  itself  to  qualitative  or  quantitative 
analysis. 

In  two  beings  so  intimately  related  as  man  and 
woman,  whose  bodily  functions  and  mental  tenden- 
cies must  necessarily  act  and  re-act  on  one  another, 
and  are  reproduced  as  a  blend  in  other  beings,  the 
raising  of  the  question  seems  at  first  sight  to  be  in- 
vidious and  unnecessary,  yet  no  other  subject  has 
so  persistently  and  tenaciously  occupied  the  human 
mind,  and  affected  the  course  of  life  on  the  globe. 

11 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

As  far  down  the  ages  of  the  past  as  man  was  able  to 
leave  a  record  of  his  thoughts,  imaginings  and  knowl- 
edge, and  from  all  quarters,  this  question  has  been 
discussed,  and  as  new  nations  sprang  into  being,  the 
eternal  subject  arose  and  impressed  itself,  not  only 
on  the  literature,  but  crystallised  itself  and  was 
embodied  in  the  laws. 

It  is,  therefore,  undeniable  that  the  matter  is  one 
of  vital  interest  to  the  human  family,  as  nothing  less 
could  account  for  its  persistency.  There  is  no  prob- 
lem of  this  kind  in  the  animal  world,  though  male 
and  female  are  performing  the  same  functions  in 
the  same  way.  It  is  this  ability  to  raise  problems  that 
marks  the  distinction  between  animal  and  human, 
this  developing  of  the  rational  faculty.  This  faculty 
seems  to  have  had  stamped  upon  it  an  insatiable 
desire  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  universe  in 
all  its  phases  and  expressions,  and  as  male  and  female 
is  its  most  intimate  expression,  it  has  taken  prec- 
edence of  all  others. 

Its  intimacy,  however,  is  not  the  real  reason  for 
its  occupying  the  foremost  place,  but  is  merely  the 
incidental  circumstance  by  and  through  which  the 
question  forces  itself  on  consciousness,  and  will  not 
be  laid  at  rest  till  a  definite  solution  is  arrived  at. 
It  has  had  long  periods  of  quiescence  during  which 
the  current  order  seemed  to  have  been  accepted  as  by 

12 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

common  consent,  but  subsequent  events  showed  that 
it  was  neither  dead  nor  sleeping,  but  was  germinating 
and  gathering  fresh  force  to  present  itself  anew.  So 
deadly  has  the  contest  been  between  the  two  rival 
claims,  the  right  of  the  one  to  dominate,  and  the 
denial  of  this  right  by  the  other,  that  the  most  pow- 
erful engine  of  the  hupian  mind  was  called  into 
action,  and  revealed  religion  was  made  to  give  a  very 
definite  and  unqualified  answer  in  favour  of  man. 
Woman  was  silenced,  defeated,  and  driven  back. 
Sullenly  she  retreated,  but  she  was  not  routed  for  she 
was  not  convinced. 

It  is  generally  assumed  that  man  is  more  difficult 
to  satisfy  than  woman  because  he  reasons,  while 
she  jumps  at  conclusions.  But  this  is  a  very  super- 
ficial argument,  since  woman  is  not  obliged  to  reason. 
Her  gift  of  intuition,  that  deep  penetrative  insight, 
that  goes  to  the  very  heart  of  things  and  of  truth, 
and  seldom  errs,  puts  her  above  and  beyond  the 
slower  and  more  fallible  methods  of  the  masculine 
mind.  Her  inner  consciousness  that  works  hidden 
away  out  of  sight,  and  that  is  so  illusive  that  it  is 
beyond  definition,  refused  to  give  credence  to  this 
story  of  creation   as  interpreted  by  man. 

Slowly,  surely,  and  with  cumulative  effect,  she 
turned  an  unyielding  front,  a  deaf  ear  to  its  tenets, 
and  whenever  woman  does  this  the  matter  is  doomed 

13 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

to  ruin,  whether  man  knows  it  or  not.  He  can  no 
more  resist  her  decisions  than  the  planets  can  resist 
the  attraction  of  the  sun.  The  best  he  can  do  is  to 
prolong  the  struggle;  thus  her  constant  refusal  to 
accept  the  reasoned-out  theory,  in  time  unsettled  his 
own  faith  in  it  and  prepared  the  way  for  his  accept- 
ance of  a  seer  who  was  an  outcome  of  her  demand 
for  truth. 

When  the  doctrine  of  evolution  was  given  to  the 
world,  therefore,  it  not  only  overthrew  all  of  man- 
kind's previous  conceptions  of  the  origin  of  species, 
but  it  also  involved,  what  it  not  yet  recognised,  the 
position  of  the  male  as  being  primary  in  the  organic 
scheme.  The  Genesaic  order  of  creation,  as  inter- 
preted by  Moses,  is  no  longer  tenable  by  those  who 
accept  the  more  rational  and  scientific,  as  well  as 
supremely  divine  process,  which  merely  supercedes 
the  old  teaching  of  separate  creative  acts,  by  one 
creative  act  that  implanted  in  the  lowest  conceivable 
atom  of  matter  the  inherent  power,  not  only  of 
propagating  itself,  but  of  evolving  to  higher  forms, 
through  natural  and  sexual  selection,  until,  in  the 
"  fulness  of  time,"  man  appeared. 

Biologists  and  naturalists  now  tell  us,  that  life 
in  the  beginning  was  female,  that  the  female  carried 
it  on  for  a  long  distance  alone,  and  that  even  when 
the  male  did  appear,  he  came  not  as  a  necessity  in 

14 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

the  scheme  of  creation,  but  to  "secure  variation,  and)w 
through  variation  the  production  of  better  and  higher  ■ 
types  of  organic  structure."  In  all  the  lower  forms 
of  life,  in  the  great  invertebrate  family,  and  to  no 
inconsiderable  extent  among  the  vertebrates,  the 
male  is  much  smaller  than  the  female,  and  is  devoted 
to  one  function  only,  namely,  fertilisation. 

In  the  insect  family  with  few  exceptions,  the  differ- 
ence is  very  marked,  the  male  frequently  being  ex- 
tremely insignificant  as  in  the  case  of  spiders  and 
the  cocoons  of  the  silk  worm.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  fish  family,  the  female  of  almost  all  species  being 
larger  than  the  male.  A  careful  observer  testifies 
that  he  does  not  know  of  a  single  instance  in  which 
the  male  is  larger  than  the  female  and  in  some  cases 
he  is  not  even  half  as  large.  This  is  so  true  that 
anglers  usually  throw  the  male  trout  back  into  the 
water  as  utterly  worthless.  Among  some  reptiles 
and  a  few  birds  the  same  difference  is  observable. 

As  the  scale  ascends  the  condition  remains  much 
the  same  till  the  rodents  are  reached  where  the  male 
has  reached  the  status  of  the  female  as  there  is 
scarcely  any  difference  between  the  sexes  either  in 
size,  colour  or  ornamentation.  Among  mammals  and 
birds  however,  the  two  most  highly  differentiated 
species,  the  opposite  condition  prevails,  and  with 
equally  few  exceptions,  the  male  is  larger  than  the 

15 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

female  as  well  as  more  ornamented.  But  even  here, 
the  reversal  is  accounted  for  in  terms  of  the  female; 
in  other  words,  it  is  the  constant  struggle  between 
the  males  to  secure  the  favour  of  the  female  that  has 
led  to  their  greater  size  and  muscular  strength,  as 
well  as  to  their  variation  from  the  normal  type  of 
their  species. 

This  struggle  to  win  the  female  differs  in  the 
different  orders,  but  the  almost  invariable  rule  is 
for  the  male  to  seek  the  female,  as  the  latter,  with 
the  rarest  exceptions,  being  much  the  less  eager  of 
the  two,  has  to  be  sedulously  courted.  Among  in- 
sects the  "law  of  battle"  between  the  males  does 
not  prevail,  and  consequently  they  remain  insignifi- 
cant and  are  frequently  nothing  more  than  parasites, 
being  attached  to  the  female  and  living  at  her  ex- 
pense, and,  at  best,  but  fertilising  agents.  Among 
some  crustaceans  the  female  has  two  pockets  in  the 
^  ■  valves  of  her  shell  in  each  of  which  she  keeps  a  little 
(  husband  in  case  of  accident.  Among  birds  and 
mammals  the  eagerness  of  the  pursuit  of  the  female 
is  notorious  and,  as  they  fight  violently  for  her  dur- 
ing the  mating  season,  it  has  resulted  after  long 
ages  in  their  attaining  to  superior  size,  muscular 
strength,  and  in  the  almost  limitless  variation  of  the 
male,  from  the  type  of  his  species,  a  variation  which 
is  occasionally  so  great,  that  he  has  been  classed  as 
a  separate  variety. 

16 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

It  is  upon  this  variation,  and  the  Genesaic  order 
of  creation,  which  says  that  the  male  was  created 
first,  with  its  implication  that  he  supplied  the  life- 
giving  element,  that  the  supremacy  and  superiority 
of  man  in  the  organic  plan  was  established.  It  was 
perfectly  natural  that  reasoning  should  first  be  in- 
ductive, that  man  should  take  the  facts  of  nature  as 
he  saw  them  around  him,  and  build  his  theories  on 
them  and  in  conformity  with  them.  And  as,  in  this 
specific  ease,  the  males  seemed  to  be  especially  fa- 
voured by  nature,  not  only  in  the  matter  of  size,  but 
of  muscle  and  adornment,  the  inference  was  irre- 
sistible, that  he  was  designedly  so  created,  for  the 
important  part  of  leader  that  he  had  to  play. 

As  similar  differences  existed  in  the  human  species, 
the  analogy  was  extended,  and  man  based  his  claims 
on  the  unity  in  nature's  plan.  The  many  incon- 
sistencies and  defects  in  his  equipment;  the  wide 
gulf  between  what  he  is  and  what  he  assumes  he  is; 
the  many  sex  weaknesses  that  seem  to  argue  against 
superiority,  that  make  woman  pause  and  wonder, 
but  because  she  could  not  comprehend  them,  and  more 
especially  because  he  has  so  persistently  asserted  his 
supremacy,  were  brushed  aside  as  anomalies,  which 
in  nowise  affected  the  main  proposition  of  his  God- 
given  right  to  sole  rulership. 

On  this  point  Mr.  F.  Lester  Ward  says,  "not  only 
do  philosophers   and  popular  writers  never  tire  of 
2  17 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

repeating  the  main  propositions  of  the  theory  of 
man's  primary  place  in  the  organic  scheme,  but 
anthropologists  and  biologists  will  go  out  of  their 
way  to  defend  it,  while  at  the  same  time  heaping  up 
facts  that  really  contradict  it,  and  strongly  support 
the  theory  of  woman's  being  primary  in  the  organic 
scheme,"  and  he  accounts  for  this  by  adding  that 
"the  theory  of  man's  supremacy  is  such  a  world 
view  that  is  deeply  stamped  upon  the  popular  mind, 
that  the  history  of  human  thought  has  demonstrated 
many  times  that  scarcely  any  number  of  facts  op- 
posed to  such  a  view  can  shake  it.  It  amounts  to 
a  social  structure  and  has  the  attributes  of  stability 
in  common  with  other  social  structures.  Only  occa- 
sionally will  a  thinking  investigator  pause  to  con- 
sider the  true  import  of  the  facts  he  is  himself 
bringing  to  light. ' ' 

In  view  of  the  fact,  however,  that  systematic, 
scientific  research  practically  began  only  mth  the 
nineteenth  century,  it  cannot  be  wondered  at,  that 
the  belief  in  the  supremacy  of  man  still  prevails. 
As  the  doctrine  of  evolution  was  the  gift  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  century,  there  was  nothing  to  shake  it, 
and  as  this  doctrine,  so  revolutionary  in  its  teach- 
ings, had  to  make  a  long,  hard  struggle  for  its 
existence,  it  is  not  surprising,  that  even  now,  its 
logical    and    far-reaching    implications    are    not    yet 

18 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

grasped.  Mr.  Ward  himself  occupies  the  unique 
position  of  being  the  only  investigator  who  has 
grasped  and  written  the  truth  that  this  great  doc- 
trine, which  has  given  to  mankind  a  rational,  orderly, 
and  Almighty  process  of  creation,  has,  at  the  same 
time,  overthrown  the  dogma  of  man's  superiority, 
and  restored  woman  to  her  rightful  place. 

The  first  proposition  is  now  scarcely  disputed,  the 
second  is  scarcely  recognised,  and,  though  the  one 
necessarily  includes  the  other,  even  he  who  deduced 
it  did  not  see  what  its  logical  deduction  would  lead 
to,  but  he  obscured  the  issue,  for  Mr.  Darwin,  him- 
self, distinctly  states,  that  man  is  superior  to  woman 
— a  statement  which  is  not  sufficiently  modified, 
even  when  brought  into  harmony  with  the  law  of 
sexual  selection,  since  the  difference  between  the 
sexes,  as  it  exists  to-day,  is-  very  largely  due  to  the 
state  of  subjection  and  exclusion  in  which  woman  has 
been  kept  by  man  for  long  ages. 

]\Ir.  Danvin's  field,  however,  was  not  man  versu.s 
woman,  and  wherever  he  touches  the  subject,  he 
deals  with  it  only  in  the  light  of  the  origin  of  species, 
and  hence  largely  on  the  physical  side,  and  with  those 
mental  attributes  only,  through  which  the  physical 
development  was  accomplished.  But  his  origin  of 
species,  is  nevertheless,  the  foundation  stone  on 
which  the  primacy  and  superiority  of  woman  rests, 

19 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

though  the  investigators  in  the  field  of  the  hnman 
family,  working  along  independent  lines,  and  prob- 
ably regarding  them  as  wholly  separate  fields,  have 
missed  the  fact,  that  the  one  was  the  continuation  of 
the  other,  namely,  that  the  fundamental  biological 
sex  differences  hold  good  throughout  all  species  of 
living  beings,  and  it  is  this  link  that  Mr.  Ward  has 
supplied. 

It  is  quite  in  keeping  with  other  phenomena  that 
attention  should  have  been  so  often  called  to  the 
unity  of  the  plan,  when  the  male  was  supposed  to 
have  been  the  first  on  earth,  and  to  have  been  origi- 
nally created  with  the  advantages  which  now  distin- 
guish him,  and  that  so  little  is  said  since  the  order 
is  reversed,  and  the  female  is  known  to  have  been  the 
first  on  the  scene,  the  only  absolutely  necessary  sex, 
and  the  primary  cause  of  the  physical  advantages 
of  the  male.  One  step  at  a  time  is  all  that  man  can 
take.  So  the  Infinite  Mind  created  His  world.  His 
method,  apparently,  was  evolution ;  and  his  creature, 
man,  must  assimilate  one  idea  before  he  can  see 
clearly  its  bearings  on  future  knowledge  and  condi- 
tions. 

How  gradual  the  progress  of  knowledge  has  been, 
becomes  evident  when  it  is  realised  that  the  word 
biology  is  not  older  than  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  many  of  the  other  'ologies  that 
we  are  now  familiar  with,  were  not  born  till  near 

20 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

its  close.  A  well-known  geologist  says,  that  through- 
out the  eighteenth  century  the  dominant  theory  of 
fossils,  was,  that  they  were  deposited  by  the  Noach- 
ian  flood,  and  a  fierce  and  bitter  campaign  persisted 
for  two  generations  on  this  point  between  orthodox 
and  heretical  science.  How  archaic  such  a  theory 
seems  to-day!  But  the  classifications  of  the  animal 
world,  made  by  Aristotle  in  the  fourth  century  before 
the  Christian  era,  remained  practically  unchanged 
for  upwards  of  eighteen  hundred  years,  and  his  phi- 
losophy is  still  the  basis  of  much  of  our  modern 
teaching.  Turning  to  botany  we  find  the  same  igno- 
rance of  the  simplest  processes  of  nature,  and  the 
same  hesitancy  in  accepting  new  ideas,  for  the  scien- 
tific world  was  very  slow  in  learning,  that  the 
numerous  organs  of  plants,  so  diversified  in  structure 
and  use,  are  all  modifications  of  one  single  form, 
and  that  form,  the  leaf. 

It  is  now  confidently  asserted  that  life  started  as 
female,  and  that  the  male  even  to-day  is  not  univer- 
sal, as  there  are,  in  all  probability,  more  living 
creatures  that  have  come  into  existence  without  ^t 
than  with  it,  even  in  the  present  life  of  the  globe, 
"The  female,"  Mr.  Ward  says  "is  not  only  the 
primary  and  original  sex,  but  continues  throughout 
as  the  main  trunk,  the  mules  being  added  to  secure 
the  crossing  of  ancestral  strains.  The  female  not 
only  typifies  the  race  but  is  the  race."     So  slowly, 

21 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

indeed,  does  one  natural  process  give  place  to  another 
in  the  ascending  scale,  that  there  are  not  only  species 
but  groups  of  species,  in  which  the  males  are  either 
wholly  unknown  or  are  rarely  found.  It  is  a  mar- 
velous and  Almighty  provision  that  evolutionary  proc- 
esses should  overlap  one  another  in  this  manner,  so 
that  man  might  work  out  for  himself  the  riddle  of 
the  universe. 

This  being  true,  it  is  obvious  that  the  male  element 
is  not  the  seat  of  the  vital  spark,  and  it  is  admitted 
now  on  all  sides,  that  its  essential  function  is  merely 
to  act  as  the  vehicle  by  which  new  varieties  are 
added,  and  not  the  vitalisation  of  the  germ  cell, 
which,  in  the  female,  is  always  much  larger  than  in 
the  male,  the  difference  in  the  human  species  being 
three  thousand  to  one. 

In  the  lowest  forms  of  life  reproduction  was  by 
budding  or  fission.  It  seemed  at  first  as  though 
nature  intended  to  have  only  a  one-sexed  world,  but 

"  Noiselessly  as  the  daylight 

Comes   back    when    night    is    done, 
And  the  crimson  streak  on  ocean's  cheek 
Grows   into   the  great   sun. 

"  Noiselessly  as  the  Spring-time 
Her   crown  of  verdure   weaves, 
And  all  the  trees  on  all  the  hills 
Open   their   thousand   leaves;" 

22 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

her  great  plan  unfolded,  and  life  gradually  evolved 
through  various  stages,  till  sex  differentiation  took 
place.  With  sex  differentiation  began  also  the  sep- 
arate tendencies  of  male  and  female.  It  is,  therefore, 
to  mankind's  dumb  progenitors,  to  the  lower  or 
animal  world  from  whence  we  came,  that  we  must 
look  in  order  to  discover  the  distinguishing  charac- 
teristics, which  have  ever  since  marked  off  the  female 
from  the  male,  and  which  have  remained  unchanged 
through  an  unbroken  line  of  succession,  during  count- 
less cycles  of  time. 

Before  discussing  mental  tendencies,  it  will  be  well 
to  note  first,  the  antecedent  conditions  which  most 
favour  the  birth  of  male  or  female,  and  it  will  be 
found  that  in  the  whole  realm  of  organic  life,  the 
governing  principle  is  one  and  the  same,  namely, 
nutrition.  Reproduction  is  closely  associated  with 
nutrition,  and  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  an  outcome  of 
it.  It  is  for  this  reason,  in  the  interests  of  species, 
that  nature  lavished  the  best  on  the  female. 

Beginning  with  the  plant  world,  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  position  of  the  female  flower,  with  respect 
to  the  male,  is  generally  in  view  of  lines  of  nutrition, 
those  spikes  which  are  favoured  with  comparative 
abundance  sustaining  the  female  flowers.  The  same 
law  holds  good  throughout  the  insect  and  animal 
world.      Favourable   conditions   such   as   light,   heat, 

23 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

moisture,  and  abundant  and  rich  nutrition  tending 
to  the  birth  of  females,  while  the  reverse  conditions 
result  in  the  production  of  males.  The  queen  bee  is 
the  consequence  of  high  nutrition  and  the  drone  of 
low  diet.  With  half-fed  caterpillars,  or  those  which 
are  kept  in  the  dark  before  entering  the  chrysalis 
state,  the  butterflies  which  emerge  will  be  males. 
Any  unfavourable  chemical  change  in  the  water,  or 
in  it«  temperature,  or  if  it  begins  to  dry  up,  will 
result  in  the  production  of  male  tadpoles.  This  has 
been  proved  beyond  a  doubt  by  experimental  feeding, 
when  it  was  ascertained  that  in  proportion  as  the  food 
was  richer,  the  percentage  of  females  increased,  till 
finally  there  were  no  males. 

Furthermore  the  length  of  the  period  of  gestation 
becomes  a  factor,  as  it  is  a  well-known  biological 
fact,  that,  exactly  in  proportion  as  the  individual 
moth  is  finer,  the  time  required  for  its  metamorphosis 
is  longer,  and  for  this  reason  the  male  evolves  more 
quickly  than  the  female.  It  would  seem  as  if  nature 
used  every  avenue  to  impress  the  greater  relative 
importance  of  the  female  in  the  organic  scheme. 

In  the  human  family  observation  has  shown  that 
conditions  are  analogous.  The  proportion  of  female 
births  is  greater  in  towns  than  in  the  country,  and 
in  families  in  comfortable  circumstances  than  among 
the   poor.     After  seasons   of  national   distress   such 

24, 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

as  war,  pestilence  or  famine,  more  boys  are  born 
than  girls,  and  it  has  been  recorded  that  in  Saxony 
the  ratio  of  boy  births  rose  and  fell  with  the  price 
of  food.  It  is  conceded  by  all  biologists  that  the 
female  being  a  higher  form  of  development  requires 
more  favourable  ante-natal  conditions  to  attain  to 
that  development. 

The  question  now  arises  as  to  whether  post-natal 
results  justify  the  law,  but  as  Dame  Nature  is  par- 
simonious, she  demands  an  equivalent  for  value  re- 
ceived and  measures  gifts  with  a  view  to  returns. 
A  cursory  examination  of  the  organic  kingdoms  will 
show  that  cause  and  effect  exactly  balance  one 
another.  The  vegetable  realm  affords  countless  in- 
stances in  proof  of  the  greater  endurance  and 
usefulness  of  the  female.  Staminate  or  male  flowers 
open  before  pistillate  or  female ;  they  are  much  more 
abundant,  and  are  less  differentiated  from  the  leaves. 
I\Tr.  Meehan  says  that,  "  by  turning  to  the  male 
flowers  we  see  a  much  greater  number  of  tracts  or 
small  leaves  scattered  through  the  panicle,  and  find 
the  pedicals  longer  than  in  the  female,  and  this  shows 
a  much  slighter  effort,  a  less  expenditure  of  force  to 
be  required  in  forming  male  than  female  flowers. 
A  male  flower,  as  we  see  clearly  here,  is  an  interme- 
diate stage  between  a  perfect  leaf  and  a  perfect,  or 
as  we  may  say,  a  perfect  flower." 

25 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

The  larch  bears  only  female  blossoms  during  its 
most  luxuriant  stage,  but  when  its  vigour  is  declining 
and  its  strength  is  almost  spent  the  male  blossoms 
appear.  The  strongest  and  most  perfect  forms  of 
coniferous  trees  are  female.  The  more  enduring 
vitality  of  the  female  is  well  exhibited  in  the  hemp 
plant.  It  is  not  till  after  the  appearance  of  the 
pollen  that  sex  in  hemp  can  be  distinguished,  and 
soon  after  it  is  shed  the  male  begins  to  wither  and 
dies.  It  has  performed  its  sole  function  in  life — to 
fertilise  the  female — and  passes  while  the  latter  con- 
tinues to  grow  taller  and  stronger,  to  bear  fruit, 
ripen  and  reach  maturity,  and  it  is  from  the  female 
plant  that  hemp  fibre  is  obtained.  To  perfectly  sat- 
isfy himself  that  this  was  true,  Mr.  Ward  watched 
the  growth  of  hemp,  and  so  verified  what  has  so  often 
been  repeated.  This,  however,  is  the  general  order 
in  the  plant  world.  It  is  the  female  that  endures  and 
is  of  service,  and  it  is  essential  that  she  should  have 
every  advantage. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  insect  kingdom  the  in- 
significant male  has  only  one  purpose  in  life  and  that 
"among  millions  of  humble  creatures  the  male  is 
simply  and  solely  a  fertiliser,"  and  we  have  also 
seen  that  he  occasionally  fails  to  do  that.  Geddes 
and  Thomson,  in  their  "Evolution  of  Sex,"  say  that 
among  the  common  rotifera   (worms)   the  males  are 

26 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

almost  always  different  from  the  females  and  much 
smaller.  Sometimes  they  seemed  to  have  dwindled 
out  of  life  altogether  for  only  the  females  are  known. 
In  other  eases,  thoug-h  present,  they  entirely  fail  to 
accomplish  their  proper  function  of  fertilisation,  as 
parthenogenesis  or  virgin  birth  obtains,  and  the  male 
is  not  only  minute  but  useless. 

How  true  this  is,  is  very  obvious  when  we  learn, 
that  in  some  genera  the  male  has  no  functional  organ 
with  which  to  feed  himself,  and  that  he  only  lives  as 
long  as  the  nutriment,  which  was  stored  up  in  the 
larval  state,  suffices  to  sustain  life.  This  is  true  of 
the  male  mosquito,  whose  mouth  is  different  from  the 
female's  and  if  he  feeds  himself  at  all  he  does  it  in 
a  manner  quite  different  from  her.  Could  anything 
illustrate  better  the  economy  of  nature  with  her 
exact  balancing  of  gift  to  service ! 

Every  one  is  familiar  with  the  uselessness  of  the 
drone  among  the  bees,  and  of  the  male  ant.  If  the 
former  become  too  numerous  they  are  killed  off  by 
the  female  workers,  and  in  the  latter,  the  male  is  so 
useless,  that  he  is  described  as  all  stomach  and  no 
brain,  and  so  lazy,  that  if  the  female  workers  did  not 
feed  him,  he  would  face  starvation  rather  than  feed 
himself.  As  ants  approach  the  human  family  in 
intelligence  more  nearly  than  any  other  creature,  it  is 
worthy    of    note    in    passing,    that    their    marvelous 

27 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

thrift  and  executive  ability  are  due  entirely  to  the 
female. 

So  varied  are  their  occupations  that  in  the  differ- 
ent species  there  are  to  be  found  carpenters,  plas- 
terers, bricklayers,  weavers,  miners,  wood-carvers, 
thatchers,  tent-makers.  They  are  architects  of  no 
mean  order  for  their  own  abodes  are  marvels  of  their 
skill  in  this  direction,  where  sewers  and  ventilation 
are  carefully  provided  for.  They  are  also  engineers, 
and  have  been  known  to  build  a  tunnel  under  a  river 
of  considerable  width.  Moreover,  they  are  farmers 
and  dairy  keepers,  for  they  sow  and  gather  in  their 
grain,  and  raise  cows  and  milk  them.  It  was  not  by 
mere  guesswork  that  Solomon  said,  "Go  to  the  ant, 
thou  sluggard ;  consider  her  ways  and  be  wise ;  which 
having  no  guide,  overseer  or  iniler,  provideth  her 
meat  in  the  summer,  and  gathereth  her  food  in  the 
harvest."  The  ways  of  these  lilliputian  creatures 
evidently  had  a  great  fascination  for  Solomon,  who 
must  have  been  a  bit  of  a  naturalist,  for  he  turns  to 
them  a  second  time  in  his  Book  of  Proverbs,  and  adds, 
"the  ants  are  a  little  people,  not  strong,  yet  they 
prepare  their  meat  in  the  summer." 

In  the  human  family  the  same  facts  of  superior 
development,  endurance,  and  vitality  are  very 
marked.  Although  more  boys  are  born  than  girls, 
more  male  children  die  in  infancy.     Statistics  have 

28 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

been  gathered  in  England  and  France,  showing  the 
relative  proportion  of  deaths  in  the  two  sexes,  during 
the  first  year  and  again  during  the  first  five  years  of 
life,  and  the  niunber  of  males  greatly  outnumbers 
the  females.  The  registrar  of  Scotland,  in  his  tenth 
Annual  Report  of  Births  and  Deaths,  was  so  struck 
by  the  greater  number  of  males  who  succiunbed,  that 
he  made  the  following  comment,  quoted  by  Mr.  Dar- 
win :  ' '  These  examples  suffice  to  show,  that  at  almost 
every  stage  of  life,  the  males  in  Scotland  have  a 
greater  liability  to  death,  and  a  higher  death  rate 
than  the  females.  The  fact,  however,  of  this  pecu- 
liarity being  most  strongly  developed,  at  that  infan- 
tile period  of  life,  when  the  dress,  food,  and  general 
treatment  of  both  sexes  are  alike,  seems  to  prove  that 
the  higher  male  death  rate  is  an  impressed,  natural, 
and  constitutional  peculiarity  due  to  sex  alone." 

Another  startling  fact  which  bears  out  the  above 
comment,  is  that  the  number  of  still-born,  illegiti- 
mate male  children  is  much  greater  than  that  of 
still-born  female.  Figures  gathered  in  several  coun- 
tries of  Europe  and  the  United  States,  where  the 
conditions  of  climate  and  the  manner  of  living  are 
very  different,  give  the  same  result.  This  is 
accounted  for  on  the  ground,  that  only  the  more  en- 
during sex  survives  the  unfortunate  ante-natal  con- 
ditions, the  tight  lacing  resorted  to  by  the  mother 

29 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

to  hide  her  condition,  the  unhappy  state  of  her  mind, 
and  in  most  cases  the  hard  work  she  performs. 

But  possibly  the  most  forceful  and  direct  testi- 
mony of  the  physical  inferiority  of  man  is  that 
furnished  by  careful  examination  of  his  greater 
tendency  to  reversion  to  type.  An  expedition  for 
scientific  research  was  fitted  out  some  years  ago,  and 
a  vast  number  of  measurements  were  made  of  the 
various  parts  of  the  body  in  different  races,  and  it 
was  found  that  the  range  of  variation  in  men  greatly 
exceeded  that  of  woman.  Muscles  were  found,  in 
some  eases,  that  do  not  normally  belong  to  the  human 
body,  and  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases,  they  were 
found  to  be  developed  more  frequently  in  men  than 
in  women.  An  examination  of  seventy  subjects, 
forty  men  and  thirty  women,  resulted  in  the  finding 
of  a  muscle  belonging  properly  only  to  the  lower 
animals  in  nineteen  cases  among  the  men,  but  in  only 
two  among  the  women.  In  the  matter  of  super- 
numerary digits,  out  of  a  large  number  of  examina- 
tions, more  than  half  of  them  were  found  among  the 
men. 

Testimony  of  this  kind,  goes  to  the  very  root  of 
the  matter,  since  it  bears  out  the  fundamental  hypo- 
thesis, on  which  the  doctrine  of  evolution  rests, 
namely,  the  variability  of  the  male,  and  such  varia- 
bility is  much  more  likely  to  take  place,  in  a  poorly 

30 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

differentiated  being.  But  after  quoting  these 
evidences  of  male  variation,  Mr.  Darwin  naively 
remarks,  that  it  should  not  be  overlooked,  that  women 
would  more  frequently  endeavour  to  conceal  a  deform- 
ity of  this  kind  than  men.  It  would  have  been 
interesting  if  he  had  stated  just  how  she  could  hide 
a  supernumerary  toe  or  finger,  or  the  presence  of  an 
abnormal  muscle  from  an  examinating  investigator. 
This  statement  shows  the  man  cropping  out  through 
the  scientist.  It  is  diflficult  to  throw  off  the  obsession 
of  centuries,  and  even  so  just  a  man  as  Mr.  Darwin 
avails  himself  of  any  loop-hole,  that  would  offer  an 
escape  from  an  admission  even  of  woman's  physical 
superiority,  though  the  fact  that  it  was  necessary  for 
the  sake  of  the  race  ought  to  have  sugar-coated  the 
pill. 

As  collateral  evidence,  Eliza  Burt  Gamble,  in  her 
**  Evolution  of  Woman,"  gives  some  valuable  statis- 
tics, gathered  from  the  public  schools  in  the  United 
States,  which  show  that  colour  blindness  is  extremely 
common  among  boys,  and  equally  rare  among  girls. 
From  time  to  time,  this  is  brought  forcibly  to  the 
notice  of  the  public,  when  it  is  found  that  railroad 
engineers  are  frequently  so  defective  in  this  respect 
that  they  fail  to  see  danger  signals. 

Further,  in  the  matter  of  touch,  the  same  author 
quotes  corroborating  testimony  of  the  superior  devel- 

81 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

opment  of  another  sense  among  women  from  the 
Treasury  Department  in  Washington,  which  says  that 
the  skill  of  women  in  handling  paper  money  is  so 
superior  that  "they  accomplish  results  that  would 
be  utterly  unattainable  without  them.  It  has  been 
found  by  long  experience,  that  a  counterfeit  may  go 
through  half  of  the  banks  of  the  country  without 
being  detected,  until  it  comes  back,  often  torn  and 
mutilated,  into  the  hands  of  the  treasury  women, 
then  it  is  certain  of  detection.  They  shut  their  eyes, 
and  feel  a  note  if  they  suspect  it,  and  if  it  feels 
wrong,  in  half  a  minute,  they  point  out  the  incon- 
gruities of  the  counterfeit."  Both  of  these  senses 
are  closely  connected  with  the  brain,  and  this  testi- 
mony has  a  certain  and  definite  value  as  showing 
what  woman's  undeveloped  mental  powers  may  be. 
The  conclusion  reached  by  almost  all  students  in 
this  field,  is  that  man  is  the  product  of  a  cruder  and 
less  developed  germ.  In  view  of  the  facts  above  men- 
tioned, it  is  difficult  to  see  how  man  can  properly 
be  called  stronger  than  woman.  The  truth  seems  to 
be  that  he  is  merely  more  muscular,  but  with  less 
actual  strength  and  endurance.  Thus  the  plant,  the 
animal,  and  the  human  family  alike  afford  evidence, 
that  the  female  having  the  burden  of  the  race  on  her 
hands  has  been  superiorly  equipped  by  nature  to 
enable  her  to  perform  her  work.     Nature  is  not  a 

32 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

blind  blunderer.  Having  certain  definite  purposes 
to  accomplish  she  proceeds  to  carrj'  them  out,  and, 
with  a  marvelous  nicety  and  ingenuity  adapts  means 
to  ends. 

So  far  in  the  review  of  her  methods,  the  physical 
only  has  been  under  consideration,  but  when  the 
higher  mammals  are  reached,  the  inquiry  broadens 
and  deepens,  and  not  only  the  greater  size  of  the 
male  has  to  be  accounted  for,  but  the  appearance  of 
the  psychic  qualities.  In  these,  too,  it  will  be  seen, 
that  through  the  female  she  works  her  wonderous 
ways.  She  is  Nature's  handmaid  and  stands  close 
to  the  heart  of  the  Great  First  Cause.  The  first  neces- 
sity for  the  support  of  this  theory,  is  that  the  female 
should  choose  her  mate  and  not  be  selected  by  him 
as  in  the  human  world.  Furthermore  she  must  have 
the  ability  to  discriminate,  otherwise  her  power  of 
selection  would  be  valueless. 

That  the  female  throughout  the  animal  world 
selects  her  partner,  can  be  concluded  by  the  most 
indifferent  obser\'er,  but  there  is  the  amplest  evidence, 
gathered  in  all  parts  of  the  globe,  by  those  qualified 
to  speak.  The  female  throughout  all  orders  of  life, 
is  more  passive  than  the  male :  in  consequence,  unlike 
the  male,  who,  owing  to  his  more  ardent  nature  is 
always  ready  "to  pair  with  any  female,"  she  is  not 
so  likely  to  be  driven  by  passion,  but  chooses  more 
3  33 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

calmly  and  deliberately.  This  in  itself  implies  power 
of  discrimination.  She  chooses  only  the  one  to  whom 
she  is  attracted.  In  the  lower  world  these  attractions 
are  largely  physical,  so  that  the  male,  with  some  slight 
advantage  over  his  fellows,  would  win  the  favour  of 
the  female,  and  this  was  no  insignificant  matter, 
since  the  males  outnumber  the  females. 

Given  the  all-absorbing  passion  of  the  male,  the 
indifference  of  the  female,  and  her  power  to  hold 
him  in  check,  and  add  to  that  an  unfinished  product 
which  could  change  its  form,  and  there  results  a 
dynamic  force  which  changed  the  male  animal  world 
from  base  to  centre,  and  which,  "  enabled  the  female, 
by  a  long  selection  of  the  more  attractive  males,  to 
add  to  their  beauty  or  other  attractive  qualities." 
Man  is  constantly  improving  the  breed  of  his  domestic 
animals  by  cross  breeding,  but  in  all  that  he  does 
he  is  only  imitating  nature. 

In  this  discrimination  in  her  choice  of  a  mate,  lies 
the  primary  cause,  of  the  gradual  approach  of  the 
male  in  size  to  the  female.  Her  selection,  at  first, 
would  likely  be  in  the  direction  of  greater  size,  and 
as  parents  transmit  their  qualities  to  their  offspring, 
who,  in  turn  select  and  again  transmit,  the  effect 
would  be  cumulative.  The  female,  being  the  normal 
type  of  the  species,  would  transmit  the  type,  to  male 
and  female  offspring  alike.     The  male,  in  so  far  as 

34 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

he  differs  from  her.  is  abnormal,  and  these  abnormal- 
ities have  been  acquired  by  the  males,  because  of  the 
preference  of  the  females  for  such  qualities.  These 
secondary  sexual  characters,  as  they  are  aptly 
called,  do  not  usually  appear  in  the  male  till  the 
age  of  puberty,  and  hence,  by  a  second  law  of  in- 
heritance, characteristics  which  do  not  appear  till 
late  in  life,  are  transmitted  only  to  the  sex  in  which 
they  originated. 

Musical  instruments  among  insects;  the  brilliant 
colouring  of  fish  and  birds,  and  in  the  latter  many 
ornamental  appendages,  and  the  gift  of  song;  among 
mammals,  size,  strength,  courage,  pugnacity,  horns, 
and  tusks;  the  cock's  comb,  and  the  lion's  mane,  have 
all  resulted  from  the  struggle  of  the  males,  in  one 
form  or  another,  to  win  the  female.  They  are  not 
natural  but  acquired.  Where  nature  put  her  own 
stamp  it  remained  unchanged.  The  father  of  this 
theory  says  on  this  subject,  ''if  it  be  admitted  that 
the  females  prefer,  or  are  unconsciously  excited  by 
the  more  beautiful  males,  then  the  males  would  slowly 
but  surely  be  rendered  more  and  more  attractive 
through  sexual  selection.  A  slight  degree  of  varia- 
tion leading  to  some  advantage,  however  slight,  in 
reiterated  deadly  contests  would  suffice  for  the  work 
of  selection;  and  it  is  certain  that  secondary  sexual 
characters  are  eminently  variable." 

35 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

These  characters  have  been  largely  acquired  by  the 
"  law  of  battle  "  between  the  males,  for  the  possession 
of  the  female.  The  indifference  of  the  latter  to  the 
attentions  of  the  male  necessitated  his  expending  a 
great  deal  of  vital  energy  to  win  her,  so  that  he  was 
obliged  to  resort  to  many  and  diverse  ways  to  please 
her.  In  addition  to  her  coyness,  his  difficulties  were 
seriously  added  to  by  numbers.  The  preponderance 
of  evidence  indicates,  that  the  males  outnumber  the 
females,  not  only  in  the  human  species,  and  in  the 
animal  world  but  even  in  the  plant,  so  that  during 
the  mating  season,  life  becomes  a  battlefield,  where 
the  rival  males  fight  violently  with  one  another,  as 
the  presence  of  many  weapons  of  offence  and  defence 
shows,  such  as  horns,  spurs,  strong  jaws,  toothed 
mandibles  and  diversified  appliances  for  holding  the 
female. 

These  variations  were  not  acquired  by  the  male  to 
fit  him  better  for  the  struggle  for  existence,  for  some 
of  them  are  a  distinct  disadvantage  to  him,  many  of 
them  are  present  only  at  the  breeding  season,  and 
disappear  after,  and  in  other  cases  where  they  are 
retained,  they  do  not  appear  till  the  age  of  maturity. 
Their  object  is  to  give  one  male  an  advantage  over 
another  in  the  struggle  for  the  female,  and  the  great 
display  he  makes  of  them  in  her  presence,  shows  not 
only  that  he  is  conscious  of  his  advantage,  but  that 

36 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

their  supreme  purpose  is  to  allure  and  attract  her. 
"  When  we  behold  two  males  fighting  for  the  pos- 
session of  a  female,  or  several  male  birds  displaying 
their  gorgeous  plumage,  and  performing  strange 
antics  before  an  assembled  body  of  females,  we  can- 
not doubt  that,  though  led  by  instinct,  they  know 
what  they  are  about  and  consciously  exert  their  men- 
tal and  bodily  powers." 

Bodily  contests  are  not  the  rule  but  rather  the  ex- 
ception among  insects,  so  their  modification  is  not 
size,  but  various  other  contrivances,  such  as  scent  or 
musical  instruments.  In  many  families  of  crus- 
taceans, the  front  antennae  have  long  thread-like 
bodies,  which  are  believed  to  be  used  as  organs  of 
smell.  They  are  more  numerous  among  the  males, 
and  are  regarded  as  secondary  sexual  organs,  which 
enable  those  who  are  most  liberally  provided  with 
them,  to  find  the  female  first. 

All  naturalists  agree  that  the  loud  noise  made  by 
such  insects  as  the  Cicadse,  crickets,  and  grasshop- 
pers, as  well  as  the  true  song  of  birds,  is  the  marital 
call  of  the  male,  as  the  female  is  mute.  As  rivalry 
is  .strong  among  these  insects,  it  results  that  those 
with  the  most  attractive  voices,  are  most  successful 
in  their  love  affairs,  so  the  contest  here  is  one  of 
voice,  but  they  also  use  it  from  anger  or  jealousy  if 
other  males  approach  them,  when   they  are   accom- 

37 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

panied  by  a  female.  A  male  cricket  was  observed 
to  take  up  his  position  at  the  entrance  of  his  burrow, 
and  stridulate  loudly  until  a  female  approached, 
when  the  loud  note  was  lowered  to  a  more  subdued 
tone,  and  the  amorous  musician  caressed  his  mate 
with  his  antennse. 

The  instrumental  contrivances  among  male  insects 
are  wonderful.  In  some  orders,  the  covers  of  one 
wing  are  provided  with  sharp  ridges  or  teeth  on  the 
underside,  and  these  are  scraped  across  a  projecting, 
smooth  surface  on  the  opposite  wing.  In  other  cases 
these  teeth  are  on  the  inner  side  of  the  legs  and  are 
scraped  across  the  sharp  edges  of  the  wing  covers, 
the  creature  sometimes  playing  one  fiddle  and  then 
the  other.  It  has  been  shown,  that  these  teeth  have 
been  developed  by  sexual  selection,  from  the  minute 
hairs  or  scales  with  which  the  wings  and  body  are 
covered. 

Pugnacity,  however,  is  not  unknown  among  insects, 
and  they  often  "  manoeuvre  with  these  sharp-teethed 
legs,  like  hussars  with  sabres."  The  Chinese  not  in- 
frequently keep  them  in  bamboo  cages  and  match 
them  as  the  western  man  did  his  gamecocks. 
Beetles  have  been  seen  fighting  about  a  female  who 
was  standing  close  by,  and  who  continued  at  her 
work  of  boring,  all  unconscious,  apparently,  an3 
wholly  indifferent  to  the  males,  who  were  clawing 

38 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

and  thumping  one  another  till  the  contest  became  so 
uneven  that  the  weaker  one  withdrew,  leaving  the 
field  to  his  stronger  rival.  It  is  no  uncommon  sight 
to  see  several  butterflies  pursuing  one  female,  and 
their  broken  wings  show  that  they  often  engage  in 
struggles. 

Male  fish  are  amorous  and  pugnacious,  while  the 
female,  as  among  insects,  is  pacific.  The  males  fight, 
and  tear,  and  kill  one  another  on  the  spawning  beds ; 
on  one  occasion,  the  keeper  of  breeding  ponds  found 
three  hundred  dead  salmon,  with  only  one  female 
among  them,  and  he  believed  it  was  the  result  of  a 
fight  for  the  possession  of  her.  The  males,  as  a  rule, 
are  more  brightly  coloured  than  the  females,  and  be- 
come more  brilliant  at  the  season  of  love.  In  some 
cases  special  features  occur  at  this  time  such  as  crests, 
protuberances  or  an  elongated  jaw. 

In  one  beautifully  coloured  family  they  resort  to 
display,  expanding  their  fins  which  are  highly  orna- 
mented, as  a  peacock  does  his  tail,  and  leaping 
around  the  female  in  the  most  vivacious  manner, 
evidently  seeking  to  attract  her  attention.  In  other 
cases  they  resort  to  wiles,  but  unlike  many  human 
males,  they  first  prepare  the  nest  by  making  a  hollow 
in  the  sand,  and  then  ti*ying,  in  their  most  persuasive 
manner,  to  induce  the  female  to  share  it  with  them, 
by  swimming  back  and  forth  between  her  and  the 

39 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

nest,  and  plainly  exhibitinpf  the  greatest  anxiety  to 
be  followed,  or  having  prepared  their  home,  each 
male  mounts  vigilant  guard  over  it,  and  vigorously 
attacks  any  other  male  who  has  the  temerity  to  come 
near,  but  is  blandness  itself  to  the  females,  and  uses 
all  the  grace  he  is  capable  of,  to  lure  her  into  his 
cave.  Sperm  whales  are  excessively  jealous  and 
quarrelsome,  and  woe  be  to  the  weaker  ones  who 
venture  in  the  direction  of  their  harem. 

The  greatest  variety  of  sexual  characters  is  to  be 
found  among  birds.  Here  the  plainness  of  the  female 
is  in  marked  contrast  with  the  sometimes  extraordi- 
nary beauty  of  the  males;  and  her  non-musical  voice 
with  the  sweetness  of  his,  nevertheless,  it  was  her 
assthetic  taste  that  called  them  into  being,  for  it  is 
to  win  her  that  they  exist.  This  is  very  evident  from 
the  amount  of  display  that  male  birds  engage  in, 
strutting  up  and  down  before  the  females,  and 
spreading  their  wings,  so  that  every  ornamental  de- 
vice and  brilliant  colour  may  be  made  the  most  of, 
or  dancing  and  performing  antics  of  the  most  gro- 
tesque kind. 

They  evidently  have  a  high  regard  for  effects,  for 
they  will  twist  themselves  into  any  position  in  order 
that  the  female  may  get  the  benefit  of  the  most 
elaborate  display.     In  this  they  show  great  ingenuity 

and  cunning,  for  if,  as  in  the  case  of  the  peacock, 

40 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

the  throat  and  breast  as  well  as  the  tail  are  beautiful, 
the  cock  takes  up  a  position  in  front  of  the  hen 
when  courting  her,  but  if,  as  in  another  family  of 
the  same  species,  the  throat  and  breast  are  dull,  and 
only  the  tail  and  wings  are  to  be  contemplated,  the 
cock  takes  a  lateral  position,  expands  his  wings  a 
little  obliquely,  and,  lowering  the  expanded  wing  on 
the  side  towards  the  female,  he  raises  the  other  till 
he  is  "  one  grand  bespangled  expanse";  nor  do  they 
fail  to  watch  keenly  the  effect  on  the  hen.  Surely 
the  vainest  woman  could  not  be  more  artful  than 
these  male  birds,  and  surely  such  artfulness  is  not 
purposeless ! 

Many  of  the  males  are  extremely  pugnacious,  the 
little  humming  bird  manifesting  this  quality  in  a 
high  degree.  One  who  is  familiar  with  their  habits 
says,  that  there  is  such  rivalry  among  them,  that  the 
least  movement  by  any  one  bird  provokes  a  general 
fight.  Mr.  Belt  watched  a  skirmish  between  two 
Australian  males,  each  of  which  was  trying  to  win 
a  female  who  was  sitting  on  a  branch,  by  displaying 
his  charms  in  front  oi"  her.  First,  one  would  shoot 
up  like  a  rocket,  then  suddenly  expanding  his  snow- 
white  tail  like  an  inverted  parachute,  slowly  descend 
in  front  of  her,  turning  round  gradually  to  show 
off  back  and  front.  While  he  was  descending,  the 
other  would  shoot  up   and  come  down  slowly  after 

41 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  same  fashion.  The  expanded  tail  covered  more 
space  than  all  the  rest  of  the  bird,  and  was  evidently 
the  grand  feature  in  the  performance.  The  enter- 
tainment ended  in  a  free  fight  between  the  two  per- 
formers, but  the  observer  did  not  learn  whether  the 
better  strategist  or  the  more  beautiful  was  victor.  In 
another  ornate  and  extremely  quarrelsome  species  the 
cocks  gather  daily  together  in  the  Spring,  at  the 
places  where  the  female  birds  lay  their  eggs  and  fight 
like  gamecocks. 

This  assembling  together  is  not  uncommon,  for 
many  species  have  specific  meeting  places  to  which 
they  resort  during  successive  years.  It  is  easy  to 
imagine  how  keen  the  rivalry  is,  when  a  dozen  or 
more  are  found  capering  before  two  hens.  Nor  is  it 
a  matter  for  surprise,  that  the  natives  take  a  holiday 
to  watch  the  birds  of  paradise,  holding  their  annual 
dancing  parties  in  the  trees,  in  their  beauty  contest. 
The  burning  bush  that  Moses  saw,  would  not  hold 
a  candle  to  one  of  these  trees  as  a  study  in  colour. 
Neither  can  a  sight  of  more  dazzling  splendour  be 
conceived,  than  that  of  a  score  of  peacocks  with  tails 
outspread,    vieing  with   each   other. 

The  Balz  or  love  dance  of  the  black  cock  of  Ger- 
many, described  by  Mr.  Brehm,  is  probably  the  most 
extraordinary  exhibition  of  the  delirium  of  passion 
to  be  found  in  the  bird  world.     He  prepares  for  the 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

struggle  by  raising  his  back  and  expanding  it  like 
a  fan,  stretching  his  neck  and  throwing  up  his  head, 
then  with  feathers  'erect,  he  spreads  out  his  wings. 
During  these  preliminary  preparations  he  utters  the 
most  peculiar  sound.  Now  the  dance  begins;  after 
taking  a  few  jumps  in  different  directions,  he  turns 
round  and  round  almost  describing  a  circle  and  beat- 
ing his  wings  all  the  time.  The  more  excited  he 
becomes,  the  harder  he  dances,  till  he  seems  like  a 
thing  possessed.  AVhen  the  dance  is  over,  the  several 
males  who  were  engaged  in  it,  begin  to  fight  and  the 
successful  one  will  visit  several  Balz  places  during 
one  morning,  to  show  his  prowess  over  a  number  of 
rivals. 

Excessive  ardour  characterises  the  males,  but 
female  birds  do  not  seem  to  be  particularly  suscep- 
tible, and  are  in  no  haste  to  mate,  so  that  the  period 
of  courtship  is  comparatively  long.  Not  only  is  there 
positive  evidence  that  she  deliberately  selects  wood- 
peckers, starlings  and  others,  being  followed  by  a 
numerous  retinue  of  males,  each  cutting  up  antics 
to  outdo  his  brothers,  and  only  desisting  when  she 
has  made  a  choice,  but  there  is  evidence  of  a  negative 
character.  Breeders  have  learned  that  it  is  useless 
to  try  to  mate  a  female  with  a  male  to  which  she 
objects.  She  shows  her  antipathy  in  a  most  marked 
way,  and  she  has  been  kno^^^l  to  maintain  this  atti- 

43 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

tude  for  months  together.  She  sulks  and  pouts,  gets 
into  the  farthest  comer  of  her  cage,  and  ruffles  up  her 
feathers,  and  will  show  fight,  if  the  undesired  male 
becomes  too  pressing  in  his  attentions.  It  is  not  un- 
common for  a  hen,  moreover,  about  which  two  males 
are  fighting,  to  go  off  with  a  third. 

Among  birds  as  in  other  orders,  many  of  the  most 
ornamental  appendages  come  and  go  with  the  mating 
season.  The  Argus  Pheasant  develops  enormous 
wing  plumes  of  great  length  and  beauty,  which  pre- 
vent his  use  of  his  wings  for  flight,  and  which  dis- 
appear after  they  have  served  their  purpose.  This 
is  also  true  of  song  birds  whose  finest  flights  of  music 
are  often  limited  to  this  period.  The  bird  world 
illustrates  more  completely  than  any  other  the  high 
development  of  the  esthetic  faculty  of  the  female, 
for  the  nature  of  the  materials  she  had  to  work  with 
gave  her  an  opportunity  not  afforded  elsewhere. 
Many  investigators  are  inclined  to  think  that  much 
of  the  gay  colouring  and  skin  excrescences,  such  as 
wattles,  combs  and  spurs,  are  merely  unspecialised 
pigment,  the  effort  of  the  system  to  throw  off  the 
accumulated  waste  material  caused  by  the  increased 
excitement  of  the  breeding  season. 

While  in  the  bird  family,  the  male  depends  a  good 
deal  on  beauty  to  further  his  love  affairs,  among 
mammals  his  chief  bulwarks  are  size,  courage,  and 
pugnacity,  hence  the  "  law  of  battle  "  governs  the 

u 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

quadruped  world.  Many  species  have  developed 
special  weapons  to  enable  them  to  fight  with  one 
another,  while  almost  all  have  stronger  teeth,  jaws, 
and  claws  than  the  female.  The  pursuit  of  the  fe- 
male among  them  is  too  well  known  to  need  any 
elaboration,  as  well  as  the  more  vicious  and  dangerous 
temper,  which  is  the  result  of  his  continuous  fighting. 
In  the  entire  range  of  the  animal  world  there  is 
a  struggle  of  one  kind  or  another  among  the  males 
and,  with  the  rarest  exceptions,  among  the  males 
only. 

These  struggles  have  not  been  to  give  one  any 
advantage  over  another  in  the  general  struggle  for 
existence,  but  only  to  give  him  an  advantage  in  the 
indulgence  of  his  most  powerful  appetite.  The  chief 
business  of  his  life  is  to  hunt  the  female,  and  he  is 
ever  on  the  alert.  Male  migratory  birds  invariably 
arrive  at  the  breeding  places  before  the  female,  and 
the  males  are  ready  to  fight  for  each  female.  Male 
salmon,  fish,  and  toads  go  up  the  rivers  first  for  the 
same  reason.  It  follows  then,  that  with  so  strong 
an  impetus,  each  species,  after  its  own  kind,  would 
develop  those  physical  modifications  that  would  best 
serve  its  ends,  and  continual  fighting  would  be  sure 
to  lead  to  the  development  of  offensive  and  defensive 
weapons,  especially  among  mammals  that  depend 
almost  exclusively  on  trials  of  strength. 

Even  here,  however,  esthetic  taste  played  a  part, 
45 


THE  advancp:  of  woman 

for  adornment  is  not  altogether  lacking,  some  having 
ornamental  arrangement  of  the  hair,  brighter  colours, 
stripes,  and  spots,  while  the  horns  of  the  deer  fam- 
ily, are,  in  part  at  least,  for  ornament.  Others  have 
odoriferous  glands  and,  as  the  same  law  holds  good 
here  as  elsewhere,  that  some  of  these  distinguishing 
peculiarities  are  limited  in  duration ,  while  those 
which  have  become  permanent  do  not  appear  till  the 
breeding  period,  it  is  an  unavoidable  inference  that 
they  owe  their  origin  to  an  overmastering  desire  to 
find  approval  with  the  female.  The  persistence  of 
the  same  law  throughout  all  organic  orders,  points 
to  a  definite  and  pre-conceived  cause  for  effect. 
There  is  another  striking  fact  about  this  matter  of 
difference  between  males,  namely,  that  it  is  most 
accentuated  in  those  males  both  of  birds,  fish,  and 
mammals  that  are  polygamous. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  female  among 
quadrupeds,  exercises  the  same  power  of  selection 
that  she  does  among  other  orders.  It  is  true  of  the 
domestic  animals,  and  must  hold  good  in  a  state  of 
nature.  This  all-wise  mother  introduces  no  varia- 
tions unless  she  has  something  definite  to  gain.  This 
power  of  selection  by  the  female,  in  all  likelihood, 
served  two  ends,  "the  work  of  raising  the  miniature 
speck  of  existence,  the  primordial  fertilising  agent, 
to  the  rank  of  a  fully  developed  animal  organism, 

46 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

approaching  in  various  degrees,  the  status  of  the 
original  specific  trunk,  then  called  the  female,"  and 
of  regulating  the  appetite  of  the  male.  The  sexual 
instinct,  we  have  just  seen,  is  of  extraordinary- 
strength,  and  all-absorbing  in  its  interests,  and  it  is 
obvious,  that  it  is  of  the  highest  importance,  for  the 
welfare  of  the  species,  that  it  should  be  kept  within 
bounds. 

Nature  made  this  provision  when  she  made  the 
female,  in  the  expressive  words  of  Mr.  Ward,  ''the 
balance  wheel  of  the  biological  system,"  and  this  in 
its  broadest  sense,  for,  as  selection  gave  birth  to  the 
aesthetic  qualities,  so  the  care  of  the  young  called  into 
being  the  moral  qualities.  The  supremacy  and  supe- 
riority of  the  male  in  the  organic  scheme,  we  are 
told,  was  designedly  bestowed  on  him  for  the  purpose 
of  earing  for  and  protecting  the  female  and  the 
young,  but  in  how  many  species  throughout  the 
animal  world  does  he  perform  this  duty,  and  if 
nature  had  fitted  him  with  this  purpose  in  view, 
would  she  have  done  her  work  in  so  imperfect  and 
ineffectual  a  manner?  This  is  assuredly  not  one  of 
her  characteristics,  yet  only  among  the  more  highly 
developed  birds  does  the  male  give  any  assistance  in 
rearing  the  young.  The  male  duck  does  not  share 
the  responsibility.  The  turkey  cock  is  so  likely  to 
devour  the  eggs  that  the  hen  has  to  hide  them,  and 

47 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  mothers  with  their  young  have  to  form  large 
groups  to  protect  them  for  a  time  from  the  old  males 
who  would  kill  them.  In  the  large  feline  family  the 
same  is  true,  if  the  mother  does  not  conceal  them  they 
will  be  eaten  by  the  males,  while  in  still  other  species 
he  shows  great  jealousy,  because  the  female  devotes 
all  her  time  to  caring  for  them. 

The  theory  of  instinctive  male  protection,  has  to 
go  the  way  of  many  other  equally  false  doctrines.  It 
is  astonishing  that,  independent  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution,  a  hypothesis  so  entirely  without  foundation 
should  have  lasted  so  long.  It  says  little  for  the  in- 
telligence or  acumen  of  humanity,  that  with  evidence 
to  the  contrary,  and  testimony  being  borne  in  afresh 
every  day,  untruth  could  prevail  till  some  one 
leader  arose,  and  laboriously  set  forth  what  was 
patent  to  all.  Surely  having  eyes  to  see,  and  we  see 
not,  or  perhaps  there  was  more  of  cunning  in  it,  and 
the  wish  was  father  to  the  thought. 

Not  only  is  the  desire  to  protect,  or  to  be  of  any 
service  whatsoever,  not  instinctively  present  in  the 
male  of  the  world  below,  but  however  he  may  ascend 
in  the  scale  of  being  it  is  but  feebly  awakened  in 
him.  Among  our  domestic  animals  the  male  is  rarely 
associated  with  his  offspring.  It  is  the  female  who 
fondles,  feeds,  nurses,  bathes,  protects  from  cold  and 
storm,   and  fights  the  enemies  of  her  kind  in  their 

48 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

interest.  Does  the  bull  or  the  cock  or  the  drake, 
the  male  cat  or  dog  or  sheep  know  or  care  anything 
about  mate  or  offspring?  Ask  the  hunter  which  he 
fears  most,  the  lion  or  the  lioness  with  her  young, 
the  buffalo  or  the  cow,  and  he  will  quickly  testify  as 
to  which  has  the  real  courage. 

Nor  does  the  female  limit  her  protective  care  to 
her  young,  for  many  among  them  will,  when  the  male 
is  wounded  by  the  shot  of  the  hunter,  hasten  to  his 
side  and  interposing  their  bodies  between  him  and 
his  enemy,  to  shield  him  from  further  harm,  regard- 
less as  to  the  exposure  to  themselves,  and  will  at  the 
same  time,  utter  plaintive  cries  of  sympathy,  while 
in  general,  if  the  situation  is  reversed,  the  male  makes 
off  seeking  his  own  safety  and  leaving  the  female  to 
her  fate. 

The  evidence  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  in  the 
world  below  man,  the  female  is  supreme.  She  was 
the  first  on  the  scene  and  carried  on  the  business  of 
life  for  a  long  time,  alone.  She  reproduced  un- 
assisted. When  the  male  came  it  was  to  introduce 
variety  into  the  stock  and  not  because  he  was  a  neces- 
sity. As  his  business  was  comparatively  trifling  so 
was  he — insignificant  in  size  and  outside  of  one  func- 
tion useless — but  the  "  jealousy  of  the  male  acting 
with  the  fvsthetic  faculty  of  the  female,  led  to  all 
these  intense  activities  of  the  rival  males,  that  de- 
4  49 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

veloped  the  characters  that  the  female  preferred. 
Success  in  these  struggles  for  favour,  due  in  turn  to 
the  qualities  that  insured  success,  was  the  sure  pass- 
port to  favour,  and  feminine  favour  meant  the 
parenthood  of  the  race.  Size  and  strength  were  the 
elements  of  success,  and  in  this  way,  the  respectable 
stature  and  compact  build  of  the  males  of  developed 
species,  gradually  replace  the  diminutiveness  and 
structural  frailty  of  the  primitive  male.  All  these 
influences  have  been  at  work  since  the  dawn  of  the 
psychic  faculty  .  .  .  and  consequently  it  is  in  the 
birds  and  mammals — the  two  latest  classes — that  the 
effects  of  sexual  selection  are  most  marked.  Here  the 
struggle  for  size,  strength,  courage  and  beauty  reaches 
its  maximum  intensity  and  begins,  in  a  sort  of  ffeo- 
metrieal  progression,  to  augment  and  multiply  all 
the  secondary  characteristics  of  the  male  and  to 
threaten  the  overthrow,  at  least  for  a  time,  of  the 
long  prevailing  female  supremacy  of  the  ancient 
world. 

"  The  formidable  weapons  of  the  males  of  manj^ 
animals,  acquired  through  sexual  selection  are  em- 
ployed exclusively  in  frightening  other  males  and 
never  in  the  serious  work  of  fighting  enemies.  The 
female  looks  on  and  admires  the  victorious  rival,  and 
selects  him  to  continue  the  species,  thus  at  each  selec- 
tion, emphasising  the  qualities  selected,  and  causing 
them  to  tower  up  into  greater  and  greater  promi- 
se 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

nence.  The  whole  phenomenon  of  so-called  male 
superiority  bears  a  certain  stamp  of  spuriousness  and 
is  a  sham.  It  is  to  natural  history  what  chivalry  was 
to  human  history.  It  is  pretentious,  meretricious, 
quixotical,  a  sort  of  make-believe  play  or  sport  of 
nature  of  an  airy,  unsubstantial  character.  The 
male  side  of  nature  shot  up  in  an  unnatural  fan- 
tastic way,  cutting  loose  from  the  real  business  of 
life,  and  attracting  a  share  of  attention  wholly 
disproportionate  to  its  business.  I  call  it  male  efflor- 
escence. It  certainly  is  not  male  supremacy,  for 
throughout  the  animal  world  below  man,  in  all  the 
serious  and  essential  affairs  of  life,  the  female  is 
still  supreme.  There  is  no  male  hegemony  or  supreme 
command.  Nevertheless  it  represents  organic  evolu- 
tion of  which  each  sex  has  partaken.  Its  chief  value 
lies  in  the  fact,  that  in  lifting  up  the  male  from  noth- 
ing to  his  present  estate,  it  has  elevated  all  life  and 
placed  the  organic  world  on  a  higher  plane."  (Ward.) 
The  parallel  between  the  male  and  female  of  the 
human  species  and  of  the  world  below  man  is  very 
close,  and  although  the  natural  order  has  been 
reversed,  the  fundamental,  biological,  sex  character- 
istics can  be  easily  traced.  It  is  now  unhesitatingly 
conceded  by  scientists  and  naturalists  that  whenever 
the  male  of  any  species  exceeds  the  female  in  size 
and  muscle,  it  is  due  to  the  constant  fighting  of 
the  males  with  one   another  during  successive   cen- 

51 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

turies.  Thus  man  owes  to  his  half-human  ancestors 
his  increased  size,  his  broader  shoulders,  and  rugged 
outlines  of  form. 

He  would  fain  still  have  it  believed,  for  he  still 
teaches  it,  that  his  advantage  is  the  result  of  the 
heavier  task  that  was  imposed  on  him,  through  the 
necessity  of  providing  for  his  own  support  and  the 
support  of  those  dependent  on  him,  but  in  savage  and 
barbarous  tribes,  the  women  invariably  work  harder 
than  the  men.  Moreover,  like  the  male  of  all  other 
animals,  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of  man 
do  not  develop  till  he  is  almost  mature,  for  his  deeper 
voice  and  the  growth  of  hair  on  the  face  are  sec- 
ondary sexual  characters.  The  young  of  both  sexes 
of  all  species  resemble  one  another  and  the  mother, 
rather  than  the  father,  till  the  age  of  puberty  is 
reached,  when  the  boy,  in  obedience  to  that  law  of 
inheritance  which  obtains  throughout  the  organic 
world,  falls  heir  to  those  qualities  of  the  male,  which 
develop  late  in  life,  and  which  appear  only  in  the 
sex  in  which  they  originated. 

It  is  this  point  of  departure  of  male  from  female, 
that  gave  rise  to  the  theory  so  dear  to  man's  heart, 
that  woman  is  the  result  of  "arrested  development," 
mental  and  physical,  a  belief  which  is  far  from 
being  discredited.  But  in  the  light  which  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  sheds  on  the  origin  of  species,  this 
theory  is  no   longer  tenable.     Here,   too,   the   truth 

59 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

should  have  been  recognised  independently,  for  there 
has  been  ample  opportunity  for  long  ages  to  note  it, 
since  emasculated  men  do  not  develop  the  distinctive 
qualities  of  the  male  but  adhere  to  type.  Evolution, 
on  the  other  hand,  turns  the  situation  and  proves 
these  pseudo-evidences  of  superiority  to  be  unnatural, 
thus  laying  on  man,  and  fixing  on  him  biologically, 
the  charge  of  being  pre-eminently  the  fickle  and 
changeable  sex,  at  the  same  time  bestowing  on  woman 
the  quality  of  a  "stubborn  power  of  permanency." 

Of  the  practical  and  moral  qualities,  in  the  world 
below  man,  we  find  few  evidences  among  the  males. 
Some  there  are  who  share  the  burden  of  the  care  of 
the  young,  but  they  are  a  small  minority,  for  their 
energy  is  chiefly  spent  on  fighting,  in  wandering 
around  in  search  of  the  female  and  in  exercising  their 
voices,  for  every  one  is  familiar  with  the  rivalry  that 
exists  among  birds  in  this  latter  respect.  The  ruling 
passion  among  them  is  to  appear  beautiful  in  some 
form  or  other.  Mr.  Darwin  says  that  he  repeatedly 
saw  the  peacoclc,  ^\■h^'M  females  of  his  own  species 
were  not  present,  displaying  his  physical  charms  be- 
fore barnyard  fowl  and  even  pigs.  Among  quad- 
rupeds the  absorbing  desire  was  to  fight,  either  to 
show  off  their  prowess  or  to  drive  off  intruders,  for 
they,  too,  mnnii'est  jealousy  in  a  high  degree.  The 
males,  therefore,  transmitted  no  qualities  to  their 
offspring  except  those  born  of  passion. 

53 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

All  these  characteristics  are  shown  among  men  in 
primitive  tribes.  In  many  quarters  of  the  globe  the 
young  men  cannot  marry,  till  they  are  strong  enough 
to  strive  successfully  with  the  older  men  for  the 
possession  of  a  woman.  Furthermore,  a  man  who 
possesses  a  good-looking  woman,  or  one  who  for  any 
reason  is  desired  by  another,  cannot  keep  her  un- 
less he  comes  off  victor  in  a  fight.  This,  doubtless, 
is  the  origin  of  our  proverb  that  ''all  is  fair  in  love." 
In  the  development  of  the  moral  qualities  the  same 
things  appear,  for  many  travellers  among  savage 
peoples  have  testified  to  the  gentler  disposition  of  the 
women,  their  greater  tenderness,  and  less  selfishness. 

Generally  and  broadly  speaking,  the  sex  character- 
istics have  remained  so  unchanged  that  they  can  be 
traced,  as  well  to-day  as  at  any  earlier  period,  and 
as  one  authority  tells  us,  what  we  know  to  be  true  by 
ordinary  observation,  that  physical  inferiority  is 
impressed  on  the  male,  so  another  tells  us,  and  who 
shall  deny  it,  when  man  himself  loudly  proclaims  it 
by  his  conduct,  that  selfishness  and  pugnacity  are 
his  natural  but  unfortunate  birthright. 

In  succeeding  chapters  it  will  be  seen  that  in  the 
human  family,  the  reversal  of  the  biological  plan, 
for  such  it  is,  was  the  outcome  of  the  muscle  that  man 
inherited,  and  that  the  difference  between  the  mental 
strength  of  man  and  woman,  is  not  inherent  but  in- 

54 


MANKIND'S  DUMB  PROGENITORS 

herited.  Mr.  Darwin  sadly  departed  from  his  own 
text  when  he  said,  that  man  was  more  powerful 
in  mind  and  body  than  woman,  and  he  grievously 
minimised  the  truth  when  he  added,  that  among 
savages,  woman  was  kept  in  a  far  more  abject  state 
of  bondage  by  man,  than  the  female  of  any  other 
animal. 

Medical  science  and  history  deny  the  first;  more- 
over it  is  a  denial  of  the  doctrine  he  taught.  The 
object  of  nature  was  not  to  create  merely  a  splendid 
physical  development.  This  was  but  a  stepping  stone 
to  her  great  aim  of  unfolding  the  mental  and  spirit- 
ual faculties,  and  assuredly,  pugnacity  and  vanity 
are  not  the  soil  for  their  highest  development.  The 
latter  statement  also  requires  much  modification, 
since  in  the  lower  world  the  female  is  supreme,  while 
in  the  human  world,  as  his  own  law  will  show,  not 
merely  the  savages,  but  man  everywhere  kept  woman 
in  the  most  brutal  subjection  till  recent  years,  and 
does  still  over  a  large  part  of  the  globe,  aud  exclusion 
from  advantages  havS  not  yet  passed  away,  even  in 
the  most  advanced  countries.  This  alone  accounts  for 
the  mental  difi'erences,  and  the  almost  universal  re- 
volt of  woman  against  man  domination  is  based  on 
the  fact  that  real,  that  is  biological,  strength  of  mind, 
remains  now  as  ever,  a  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  the  female. 

BS 


II 

EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

The  human  being,  emerging  by  imperceptible 
degrees,  from  the  world  below  him,  embodied  in  him- 
self, the  characteristics  which  had  been  acquired  in 
the  slow  process  of  evolution,  from  lower  to  higher 
planes  of  existence,  and  the  distinct  peculiarities  of 
male  and  female,  were  extended  into  the  life  of  the 
human  family.  Nature's  methods  are  orderly  and 
succinct.  There  are  no  violent  transitions,  no  sudden 
appearances  of  types  unknown  before,  but  a  steady, 
onward,  upward  progress,  in  conformity  with  the 
ever-present  law  of  cause  and  effect,  and  we  find  the 
human  female,  with  the  same  characteristics  as  the 
hen  in  her  chicken  coop — love  for  the  young  and  the 
instinct  to  nourish  and  protect  them,  and  in  the  male 
the  same  qualities  which  distinguish  his  ancestors. 

At  his  first  appearance,  man  was  merely  a  higher 
and  more  differentiated  type  of  mammal,  without 
speech  or  any  higher  rule  of  conduct,  than  that  which 
he  had  inherited  from  his  animal  progenitors.  The 
relation  between  male  and  female  must  have  remained 
the  same,  as  in  the  world  from  which  they  had 
emerged,  and  woman  must  have  been  the  dominant 
power.    In  the  lower  world  she  not  only  brought  the 

56 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

young  into  life,  but  she  provided  for  them  very 
largely  herself,  and  she  regulated  absolutely  the 
appetite  of  the  male.  His  superior  size,  muscle,  or 
beauty  gave  him  no  advantage  as  a  ruler  or  leader, 
it  served  him  merely  as  a  suitor.  Beautiful  or  mas- 
terful as  he  might  be,  he  was  glad  "to  pair  with  any 
female,"  as  the  human  male  was,  for  long  ages  after 
he  had  left  the  purely  animal  stage,  nor  has  he  fully 
recovered  from  his  early  biological  tendency,  though 
he  long  since  wrested  the  power  of  selection  from  the 
female.  If  she  spurned  him,  he  did  not  attempt  to 
touch  or  coerce  her,  but  he  vented  his  jealous  rage 
on  his  fellows.  The  advnntages  he  had  gained  were 
purely  physical,  and  he  used  them  chiefly  for  self- 
gratification. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  female  had  advanced  on 
the  moral  scale.  By  using  her  aesthetic  taste  in 
choosing  the  best  specimen  from  among  her  suitors, 
she  had  cultivated  this  taste,  and  by  defending,  pro- 
viding, and  caring  for  the  young,  she  had  developed 
the  practical  and  altruistic  qualities.  She  was  the 
superior  of  the  two,  the  only  one  qualified  to  guide 
the  new  species  during  its  infancy.  It  is,  therefore, 
not  only  safe  to  infer,  that  woman  directed  the 
human  family  through  all  the  initial  stages  of  its 
existence,  but  it  is  the  logical,  inevitable  consequence 
of  its  origin  from  the  animal  world.     It  is  not  con- 

67 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

ceivable  that  it  could  have  been  otherwise,  and  it  is 
curious  that  the  scientific  world,  which  has  accepted 
the  Darwinian  theory  of  sexual  selection,  and  has 
since  added  much  striking  evidence  in  support  of  it, 
should  have  totally  overlooked  its  necessary  corollary. 

In  the  animal  world,  the  mating  of  the  sexes  has 
no  reference  to  offspring,  any  more  than  sexual  selec- 
tion had.  It  is  done  in  accordance  with  desire,  and 
in  obedience  to  an  instinct.  The  young  know  nothing 
of  the  paternal  relation;  it  is  to  the  mother  that  in- 
stinct leads  them,  when  hungry  or  in  danger.  So 
it  must  have  been  with  the  higher  mammal — man. 
During  early  ages  there  could  have  been  no  idea  of 
a  paternal  relationship,  neither  father  nor  mother 
were  conscious  of  it.  That  did  not  come  for  some 
time  after  the  rational  faculty  had  been  developed, 
and  all  through  this  period,  woman  must  necessarily 
have  been  the  centre. 

Herr  Bachofen,  a  jurist,  of  Stuttgart,  was  the  first 
to  startle  the  world  with  a  theory  of  female 
supremacy.  His  "  Mutterrecht "  was  published  in 
1861,  shortly  before  Mr.  Darwin's  "Origin  of 
Species. ' '  But  the  one  was  in  no  respect  a  consequence 
of  the  other,  and  probably  no  two  men  would  have 
been  more  surprised,  than  the  respective  authors  of 
these  works  to  know  that,  in  point  of  fact,  they  dove- 
tailed into  one  another.     Had  the  order  of  their  ap- 

58 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

pearance  been  reversed,  and  the  "Origin  of  Species" 
appeared  ten  years  before  "Das  Mutterrecht"  they 
must  inevitably  have  been  regarded  as  complementary 
and  supplementary.  Bachofen  would  then  have  dated 
his  female  rule,  from  the  first  emergence  of  man 
from  the  lower  world,  and  not  from  a  subsequent 
period,  probably  somewhere  about  the  time  of  the 
gentile  organisation,  with  its  descent  in  the  female 
line. 

It  was  this  unfortunate,  and  at  the  time  unavoid- 
able, necessity  of  supposing  that  the  balance  of  power 
had  shifted  from  man  to  woman,  which  made  his 
work  of  limited  value  for  his  age.  It  is  needless  to 
say,  that  had  man  had  the  sceptre  in  the  beginning, 
it  could  not  have  been  completely  wrested  from  his 
hands,  and  female  supremacy  meant  nothing  less 
than  absolute  control,  and  the  subordination  of  man 
to  woman.  As  it  was,  Herr  Bachofen  was,  unfortu- 
nately, one  of  those  great  intellectual  path-finders 
whose  reward  is  posthumous,  and  who  delved  and 
sowed,  that  others  might  bring  his  labour  into  apposi- 
tion with  its  natural  antecedent,  and  thus  set  forth 
the  priceless  service  he  rendered  to  humanity. 

He  had  been  led  to  his  conclusions  from  the  evi- 
dence which  underlies  the  traditions  and  mythologies 
of  ancient  nations,  and  from  the  laws  and  records 
of  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  peoples.     Later,  ]\Ir,  J.  P. 

59 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

McLennan,  in  the  course  of  his  investigations,  found 
that  a  great  many  barbarous  tribes  still  existing 
trace  descent  in  the  female  line,  and  live  under  a 
system  of  mother  rule,  and  Mr.  L.  H.  Morgan,  who 
has  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  North  American 
Indians,  says  at  the  time  America  was  discovered,  a 
similar  condition  existed  among  them. 

This  fact  of  the  matriarchate  is  now  recognised  by 
almost  all  biologists,  yet,  strange  to  say,  it  has  re- 
mained an  isolated,  undigested,  inconvenient,  and 
incoherent  reality,  that  has  not  been  fitted  into  its 
place  but  has  floated  around,  only  to  confuse  and 
confound  counsel,  and  its  import  has  not  been  com- 
prehended, because  it  has  had  no  logical  antecedent 
and  consequent.  Mr.  Lester  F.  Ward  is  the  only 
sociologist  to  recognise  its  rightful  place  in  the  con- 
secutive chain  of  events.  He  says,  "as  the  female 
sex  had  always  exercised  supremacy  in  the  most  vital 
matters,  it  may  be  supposed  that  woman  would  prove 
the  dominant  sex  in  the  primitive  hordes.  That  this 
was  the  tendency  and  logic  of  events,  is  abundantly 
shown  by  the  survivals  of  it  that  we  find,  and  by  the 
real  conditions  of  the  lowest  existing  races.  That 
under  the  circumstances,  mother-right  and  mother- 
rule  should  prevail,  is  among  the  necessities  of  exist- 
ence. Amazonism,  matriarchy,  and  all  the  forms  of 
female  gynfpoeracy  that  are  found  among  primitive 

60 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

peoples,  instead  of  being  anomalies  or  curiosities,  are 
simple  survivals  of  this  early,  and  probably  very 
long,  stage  in  the  history  of  man  and  society,  of 
which  no  other  evidence  now  exists,  but  which  is  the 
logical  and  inevitable  conclusion,  that  must  follow 
the  admission  of  the  animal  origin  of  man. 

"  Bachofen,  McLennan,  IMorgan,  and  the  other 
ethnologists,  who  have  contributed  to  our  knowledge 
of  the  remarkable  institution  or  historic  phase  called 
the  matriarchate,  all  stop  short  of  stating  the  full 
significance  of  these  phenomenal;  and  the  facts  of 
Amazonism,  that  are  so  often  referred  to  as  so  many 
singular  anomalies  and  reversals  of  the  natural  order 
of  things,  are  never  looked  at  philosophically,  as 
residual  facts  that  must  be  explained,  even  if  they 
overthrow  many  current  beliefs,  but,  not  according 
with  the  accepted  view  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes, 
they  are  brushed  aside  as  worthless  anomalies,  and 
'exceptions  that  prove  the  rule.'  In  fact  in  all 
branches  of  biology  the  progress  of  truth  has  been 
greatly  impeded  by  this  spirit." 

It  is  almost  incredible  that  trained  scientific 
minds,  could  continually  face  the  fact  of  descent  in 
the  female  line,  Avithout  pausing  to  work  out  the 
problem,  for  every  ethnologist  has  had  to  reckon  with 
it  in  some  manner  or  other,  since  every  tribe  has 
passed  through  this  social  phase,  at  some  time  in  its 

61 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

history.  It  shows  how  difficult  it  is  to  change  a 
mental  attitude  which  has  once  become  firmly  fixed, 
and  that  there  is  very  little  difference,  in  this  respect, 
between  the  trained  and  the  untrained.  Particularly 
is  this  true,  in  a  matter  so  fundamentally  disconcert- 
ing to  the  male  mind.  Man's  belief  in  his  primary 
place  in  the  scheme  of  life,  appeared  to  rest  on  a 
foundation  as  fixed  as  that  of  the  everlasting  hills, 
hence  all  students  in  this  field  have  systematically 
minimised  and  underrated  anything  that  tended  to 
give  woman  the  foremost  place,  even  though  they 
could  not  dispose  of  it  altogether. 

On  the  other  hand  there  is  no  uncertain  note,  and 
no  minimising  of  its  importance,  when  descent  was 
changed  to  the  male  line.  That  is  altogether  another 
affair.  Yet  nearly  all  of  these  scientists  accept  the 
Darwinian  theory,  withal  they  have  failed  to  note 
that  no  stronger  testimony  could  be  adduced  in  its 
favour  than  that  of  female  supremacy,  and  if  this 
existed,  as  late  as  the  early  barbaric  period  as  they 
assert,  it  unquestionably  existed  all  through  the  pre- 
ceding times,  in  an  unbroken  sequence  from  the 
animal  world  to  the  time  of  the  patriarchate. 

This  is  not  only  the  logical  sequence,  but  it  is 
more  of  a  tribute  to  man  himself,  than  to  argue  that 
the  power  was  wrested  from  him  subsequently,  while 
it  is  foolish  to  try  by  feeble  subterfuges,  to  divert 

62 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

attention  from  the  fact,  that  descent  in  the  female  line 
was  more  universal  in  the  early  da}%  of  the  species, 
than  descent  in  the  male  line  is  to-day,  or  to  attribute 
it  to  an  accident  or  anomaly,  since  it  was  part  of  the 
plan  of  the  Mighty  Architect,  for  a  wise  and  benefi- 
cent purpose.  A  fact  is  an  ugly  thing  to  handle,  its 
persistency  is  eternal,  and  the  only  way  to  set  it  at 
rest  is  to  face  it  and  accept  the  consequence. 

In  the  beginning  man  lived  the  life  of  his  ances-  ) 
tors,  fed  on  nuts  and  fruits,  roamed  the  forests  and 
probably  lived  in  trees.  But,  gradually,  as  the  cen- 
turies rolled  on,  the  reasoning  faculty  began  to 
develop,  and  sounds  which,  at  first,  had  been  mere 
articulations,  became  speech,  and  before  the  close 
of  this  long  period,  the  social  order  called  the  gens 
appeared.  This  was  an  expansion  of  the  family, 
though  such  an  idea  as  this  word  now  conveys  must 
not  be  associated  with  it.  The  paternal  relation  was 
unrecognised,  and  the  father  did  not  belong  to  the 
gens  of  the  mother  and  children.  Descent  was 
reckoned  in  the  female  line,  and  only  the  descendants 
of  the  female  founder  of  the  gens  belonged  to  it, 
or  were  reckoned  in  it.  The  children  did  not  take 
the  father's  name,  nor  did  they  inherit  anything 
from  him,  even  for  a  long  time  after  the  relation 
was  recognised.  II is  lieirs  were  his  sisters  and  their 
children  and  his  brothers,  so  slowly  did  the  new  idea 

63 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

of  the  connection  of  the  father  with  the  child  super- 
cede the  old  one  of  motherhood  only.  This  relation- 
ship of  fatherhood  long  remained  merely  nominal 
until  it  was  slowly  digested  and  assimilated. 

It  was  a  custom,  fully  authenticated  by  many 
travellers,  for  the  women  of  the  tribe  under  their 
observation,  to  go  away  alone  into  some  solitary  place 
to  give  birth  to  their  young,  just  as  the  cow  and  other 
animals  do,  but  as  tribes  advanced,  or  when  they 
went  to  colder  regions,  which  no  longer  permitted 
of  it,  this  habit,  inherited  from  their  animal  ancestors 
was  abandoned,  and  a  certain  amount  of  nursing, 
together  with  the  taking  of  medicinal  herbs  succeeded. 
Even  so  slight  a  change  as  this  seems  to  be,  would 
have  an  enormous  effect  on  struggling  reason,  and 
must  have  aided  greatly  in  working  out  the  problem 
of  sex  relationship  so  that  in  time,  the  man  also 
began  to  be  associated  with  the  coming  of  the  child, 
and  this  conception  took  more  and  more  definite  form 
till  finally,  it  found  expression  in  the  world-wide 
custom  called  by  Tylor,  "  La  Couvade." 

This  extraordinary  fiction,  which  seems  to  have 
been  as  widely  observed  as  descent  in  the  female  line, 
and  of  which  distinct  traces  still  exist  in  many  quar- 
ters of  the  globe,  though  it  has  lost  its  original 
significance,  and  continues  merely  as  a  survival,  was 
apparently  the  precursor  of  the  acknowledgment  of 

64 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

paternity  among  all  peoples.  As  Mr.  Ward  says,  the 
reasoning  which  led  to  its  observance  was  the  asso- 
ciation in  the  savage  mind  of  the  temporary  illness 
of  the  woman,  and  the  advent  of  the  child.  The  man, 
realising  incoherently  that  he,  too,  was  connected  in 
some  way  with  the  life  of  the  child,  feigned  illness 
when  the  mother  was  ill,  and  in  this  way  gradually 
established  his  rights  to  paternity. 

This  feigned  illness  assumed  different  degrees 
among  different  tribes.  In  some,  the  man  only  ab- 
stained from  any  muscular  exertion,  remained  near 
his  abode,  and  modified  his  regular  routine  of  daily 
existence.  In  others  he  took  all  the  medicine  that 
his  wife  did,  and  lived  on  the  restricted  diet  pre- 
scribed for  her.  But  in  many  cases  the  representation 
was  more  graphic,  for  he  went  to  bed,  and  frequently 
remained  there  for  days  after  the  mother  was  around 
tending  to  her  daily  duties  and  it  was  no  uncommon 
thing,  for  the  mother  of  a  new  born  child,  to  be  work- 
ing in  the  fields,  or  carrying  water  from  the  river, 
while  her  husband,  the  father,  was  still  in  bed  and 
the  object  of  solicitude  among  the  neighbours. 

The  Jesuit  missionary,  Dobritzhofer,  who  worked 
long  among  the  natives  of  Paraguay,  cites  a  typical 
case.  He  says,  "no  sooner  do  you  hear  that  the  wife 
has  borne  a  child,  than  you  will  see  the  husband 
lying  in  bed  huddled  up  with  mats  and  skins,  lest 
5  66 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

some  rude  breath  of  air  should  touch  him,  fasting, 
keeping  in  private,  and  for  a  number  of  days  abstain- 
ing religiously  from  certain  viands ;  you  would  swear 
it  was  he  who  had  the  child."  Another  traveller 
among  native  peoples  says  that  on  one  occasion  he  was 
going  up  a  river  in  a  canoe  and  was  overtaken  by 
darkness  before  he  reached  his  destination.  He  saw 
an  encampment,  landed  and  was  hospitably  received. 
During  the  night  he  heard  a  man  crying  out  as  if  in 
great  pain,  and  on  examination  he  found  him  making 
all  the  contortions  of  one  who  was  suffering  intensely. 
On  inquiring  of  those  who  had  come  to  his  assistance, 
he  learned  that  the  man's  wife  had  just  given. birth 
to  a  child  without  uttering  a  sound,  and  that  he  was 
enduring  the  pangs  of  travail.  All  the  a<ttention 
was  bestowed  on  him  to  the  neglect  of  the  mother. 

In  the  early  patriarchal  legends  as  we  find  them 
recorded  in  the  old  Bible,  descent  was  in  the  female 
line.  Much  of  the  marriage  relationship  as  given  in 
it,  is  regarded  as  indecent,  but  it  is  only  so  because 
it  is  not  understood.  In  the  days  when  paternal 
relationship  was  not  recognised,  because  it  was  not 
comprehended,  the  whole  outlook  would  be  different, 
and  relationship  would  be  accounted  on  the  side  of 
the  mother  only.  It  is  a  strange  fact,  however,  that 
at  that  early  period  in  the  history  of  the  race,  the 
deteriorating   influence   of   consanguineous   marriage 

66 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

was  realised,  but  the  father  not  being  related,  there 
was  no  consanguinity  on  his  side :  thus  Nahor  married 
his  brother's  daughter;  Abraham  married  Sarai,  the 
daughter  of  his  father  but  not  the  daughter  of  his 
mother,  and  consequently,  in  no  wise  related  to  him, 
though  he  made  use  of  the  fiction  whenever  it  suited 
his  purpose  to  do  so.  Moses's  father,  Amram,  mar- 
ried his  father's  sister,  but  she  was  not  his  aunt  ac- 
cording to  their  genealogy. 

In  the  Book  of  Judges,  chapter  xi,  1-3,  it  is  re- 
corded, that  the  sons  of  Gilead's  wife  thrust  out 
Jepthah,  and  said  unto  him,  "thou  shalt  not  inherit 
in  our  father's  house;  for  thou  art  the  son  of  a 
strange  woman."  Yet  they  were  all  equally  Gilead's 
sons,  but  the  relation  was  not  recognised  through  the 
father,  and  Jepthah  was  "the  son  of  a  strange  wo- 
man." That  the  children  did  not  belong  to  the 
father  but  to  the  mother,  is  again  evident  from  the 
account  given  of  Rebekah's  marriage  to  Isaac.  When 
Abraham  sent  to  seek  a  wife  for  his  son  among  his 
own  kindred,  he  purchased  Rebekah  by  giving  pres- 
ents to  her  mother,  Milcah,  and  to  her  brother,  Laban, 
but  no  recognition  was  made  of  her  father,  Bethuel ; 
and  this  same  Laban  later  claimed  his  daughter's 
children  as  his  own,  passing  over  the  claim  of  their 
father  Jacob.  These  biblical  records  were  evidently 
a  survival   of  the  matriarchate,   and  they   afford   a 

67 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

glimpse  into  the  transition  period,  when  the  relation 
of  the  father  to  the  child  was  recognised,  but  was 
still  nominal  rather  than  real. 

When  America  was  discovered,  as  we  shall  see 
later,  woman  exercised  political  power,  and  descent 
was  reckoned  through  the  mother,  the  children  tak- 
ing her  name ;  moreover,  traces  of  the  matriarchate 
still  exist  among  some  African  tribes,  in  Sumatra 
and  elsewhere.  In  Ceylon,  when  marriage  occurs  in 
the  form  called  Beena,  the  man  leaves  his  family 
and  becomes  a  part  of  his  wife's  family.  He  lives 
with  them  and  works  for  them,  and  the  children  be- 
long to  the  mother  and  not  to  him.  This  was  also 
the  ease  in  New  Zealand  among  some  of  the  Maori 
tribes,  and  wherever  descent  is  in  the  female  line,  if 
the  tribal  system  is  in  force,  it  involves  for  the  man 
a  change  of  tribe. 

It  was  during  this  long  cycle  that  the  rational 
faculty  was  developed,  and  that  language  was  formed, 
and  it  was  brought  to  a  close,  when  the  reasoning 
faculty  was  sufficiently  advanced  to  realise  father- 
hood, and  hence  man's  power  over  woman  and  the 
child.  This  recognition  came  slowly  and  at  widely 
separated  periods  to  the  different  clans  and  tribes. 
There  has  never  been  any  uniformity  in  time,  in  the 
progress  of  peoples  and  the  differences  were  much 
more  marked  in   the   ancient  world  than  they  are 

68 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

to-day,  as  there  was  no  communication  of  any  kind 
between  the  hordes  scattered  over  the  face  of  the 
earth,  but  each  developed  in  its  own  way,  according 
to  circumstances  and  environment.  But  this  only 
serves  to  accentuate  the  unity  of  the  plan,  that,  in 
the  midst  of  such  diversity  of  place  and  surround- 
ings, for  man,  in  the  early  days  of  savagery,  seems 
to  have  spread  over  the  five  continents,  there  should 
be  indubitable  evidence  of  identical  developments,  in 
identical  stages  of  advancement. 

This  period  of  the  matriarchate  during  which  so- 
ciety was  slowly  evolving,  is  stated  to  have  been  a 
time  of  peace  by  nearly  all  ethnologists,  when  asso- 
ciations of  human  beings  were  gradually  coalescing 
into  larger  groups,  and  clans,  and  tribes.  This  would 
be  in  accordance  with  female  supremacy,  for  the 
female  in  the  animal  world  is  pacific  in  temperament 
and  habits,  and  the  human  female,  as  long  as  she  was 
allowed  to  develop  freely  and  normally,  followed 
her  biological  bent,  and  compelled  those  whom  she 
controlled  to  do  likewise. 

The  age  of  strife  among  tribes  and  peoples  began 
with  the  patriarchate,  and  this,  too,  is  in  biological 
harmony  with  the  inherited  temperament  of  the  male. 
Had  not  nature  made  this  wise,  and  indeed,  neces- 
sary provision  of  mother  rule,  it  is  veiy  question- 
able whether  the  race  would  ever  have  emerged  from 

69 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

savagery.  If  the  destiny  of  the  new  species  had  been 
in  the  full  and  unrestrained  control  of  the  variable 
and  fighting  male,  who  rarely  met  his  fellows,  in  the 
world  from  which  he  hailed,  without  a  contest,  and 
whose  inheritance  was  almost  wholly  self-gratification 
and  general  uselessness,  outside  of  one  function,  the 
whole  human  family  would  probably  be  in  the  con- 
dition of  the  native  Australian  at  the  present  time. 

There  could  be  no  period  in  its  entire  history,  so 
pregnant  in  its  results  for  weal  or  woe,  as  that  early 
dawn.  Upon  the  nature  of  the  first  steps  depended 
all  subsequent  steps,  for  there  is  no  wiping  out  and 
no  undoing.  The  immutable  law  is  cause  and  effect. 
The  present  is  the  immediate  outcome  of  the  past, 
and  the  future  is  the  offspring  of  the  present.  The 
second  step  is  but  the  evolving  and  developing  of 
the  first,  moulded  and  modified  by  environment,  but 
with  its  fundamental  fact  unchanged.  The  systems 
of  government  that  prevail  all  over  the  earth,  not- 
withstanding their  many  and  diverse  features,  can 
be  traced  back  to  their  common  source  in  the  period 
called  savagery. 

The  marriage  relation  of  to-day  is  the  direct  lineal 
descendant,  through  various  modifications,  of  one 
which  in  the  beginning  differed  from  the  present 
as  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west.  Mr.  Morgan,  in 
his  ' '  Ancient  Society  ' '  says,  ' '  that  the  history  of  the 
human  race  is  one  in  source,  one  in  experience,  and 

70 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

one  in  progress.  The  principal  institutions  of  man- 
kind originated  in  savagery,  were  developed  in  bar- 
barism, and  are  maturing  in  civilisation."  The  first 
essential  to  progress  is  peace.  This  has  been  exempli- 
fied over  and  over  again,  in  the  history  of  nations, 
but  at  the  beginning  it  was  not  only  essential  but 
vital,  and  it  could  come  from  one  source  only — ^the 
pacific  mammal — woman. 

The  gens  was  the  first  luiit  in  the  social  order,  and 
it  was  evolved  from  the  chaos  of  the  horde.  It  took 
form  at  some  time  in  the  period  of  savagery,  a  pe- 
riod which  embraces  by  far  the  longest  time,  that  the 
human  family  has  been  on  earth,  and  is  reckoned  by 
some  writers,  as  high  as  three-fifths  of  the  entire 
time  of  the  duration  of  the  species.  Investigation 
in  all  quarters  of  the  globe,  has  been  sufficiently  ex- 
haustive, to  allow  ethnologists  to  assert  positively, 
that,  as  the  earliest  unit  of  organised  society,  the 
gens  has  prevailed,  almost  wherever  mankind  was  to 
be  found,  though  it  appeared  at  no  uniform  time,  for 
races  moved  forward  with  all  the  irregularity  that 
has  ever  marked  social  progress. 

It  has  also  been  ascertained  beyond  a  doubt,  that, 
wherever  this  unit  existed,  there  went  with  it  a  sys- 
tem of  government,  in  which  woman  was  supreme. 
In  the  animal  world,  whenever  the  larger  quadrupeds 
are  on  the  move,  they  are  invariably  led  by  an  old 
female,  a  mother  or  grandmother.     So  in  the  human 

71 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

world.  In  the  grey  dawn  of  that  far-away  morn- 
ing of  the  species,  the  mother  was  the  sole  known 
parent,  and  on  her  devolved  the  care  and  guidance 
and  government  of  the  race.  The  physical  change 
from  animal  to  human  was  so  slight,  that  it  was  not 
even  a  step,  and  equally  slight  was  the  demand  in 
the  realm  of  instinct.  Her  native  endowment  was 
ample,  and  growth  kept  step  with  requirements. 
Doubtless  the  gens  emerged  from  the  horde,  as  natu- 
rally and  simply  as  the  animal  from  the  human,  for 
the  females  in  the  ant  and  bee  communities  do  not 
struggle  for  place  and  power,  they  are  banded 
together  for  mutual  aid  and  not  for  individual 
aggrandisement. 

So  in  the  world  above.  The  younger  women  worked 
and  bore  the  young,  and  the  elder  made  the  laws  that 
governed  the  communities,  and  placed  the  most  ven- 
erable among  them  at  the  head,  as  the  embodiment 
of  the  highest  wisdom.  It  may  be  regarded  almost 
as  a  certain  inference,  that,  while  woman  remained 
chief  of  the  gens,  the  office  was  filled  by  rotation  of 
the  oldest,  and  that  the  elective  principle,  which  is 
a  manifestation  of  struggle,  followed  on  man's  as- 
sumption of  power.  But  even  after  man  had  taken 
all  power  into  his  hands,  and  held  all  offices,  no  man 
could  be  elected  chief  unless  he  was  a  direct,  lineal 
descendant  on  the  female  side  of  the  female  founder 

72 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

of  the  gens,  nor  could  a  chief's  son  be  elected  his 
successor,  for,  as  marriage  was  prohibited  within  the 
gens,  because  of  consanguinity,  he  would  have  to 
accept  a  wife  from  another  gens,  and  his  children 
would  not  belong  to  his  gens,  but  to  the  gens  of  their 
mother.  This  continued  to  be  the  case  till  descent 
was  changed  to  the  male  line. 

It  has  already  been  said,  that  our  knowledge  of  the 
sciences  is  of  very  recent  date,  and  systematic  inves- 
tigation into  social  conditions,  is  one  of  the  latest. 
Mr.  Morgan  repeatedly  laments,  that  the  opportunity 
presented  by  the  American  Indian  tribes,  has  been 
so  long  neglected.  When  it  was  discovered,  the  most 
advanced  tribes,  the  Aztecs  and  the  Iroquois,  were 
in  the  lowest  stage  of  barbarism,  and  had  a  careful 
investigation  been  made  into  their  social  and  gov- 
ernmental systems,  it  w^ould  have  been  possible  to 
have  obtained  more  accurately,  the  conditions  in  the 
latest  stage  of  savagery,  from  which  they  had  but 
comparatively  recently  advanced. 

But  when  America  was  discovered,  the  ruling  prin- 
ciple of  society  all  over  Europe  and  elsewhere,  was 
the  law  of  conquest,  not  of  knowledge  but  of  the 
persons  and  territory  of  their  neighbours,  so  that, 
whatever  was  learned  by  the  early  discoverers  was 
superficial  and  fragmentary.  Our  knowledge,  there- 
fore,  of  the   exact  condition   is   far   from   complete. 

73 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

A  vast  array  of  facts  has  been  collected,  and  in  time 
doubtless  these  will  be  reduced  to  order,  evidence 
will  be  weighed  and  compared,  and  agreement  will 
be  arrived  at  but  it  can  never  be  correct  until  sociol- 
ogists are  ready  to  accept  nature's  order  as  the  only 
true  and  certain  guide. 

In  the  meantime,  the  facts  which  stand  out  clearly 
are,  that  "the  gens  came  into  being  upon  three  prin- 
cipal conceptions,  namely,  the  bond  of  kin;  a  pure 
lineage  through  descent  in  the  female  line;  and  non- 
intermarriage  in  the  gens."  Mr.  Morgan  cites  the 
conditions  among  the  Iroquois  as  a  standard  of  this 
great  institution :  "It  was  a  democratic  assembly 
because  every  adult  male  and  female  member  had  a 
voice  upon  questions  brought  before  it  ...  it 
adopted  persons  into  the  gens.  .  .  .  All  the  mem- 
bers were  personally  free,  and  they  were  bound  to  de- 
fend each  other's  freedom;  they  were  equal  in  privi- 
lege and  rights.  .  .  .  They  were  a  brotherhood 
bound  together  by  ties  of  kin.  Liberty,  equality,  and 
fraternity,  though  never  formulated,  were  cardinal 
principles  of  the  gens.  At  the  epoch  of  American 
discovery  the  American  Indian  tribes  generally  were 
organised  in  Gentes,  with  descent  in  the  female  line." 
Even  in  those  cases  in  which  descent  had  been 
changed  to  the  male  line,  there  was  evidence  that 
the  change  had  been  recent. 

74 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

Mr.  Morgan  further  quotes  a  letter  which  he  re- 
ceived from  Asher  Wright,  who  was  a  missionary  for 
many  years  among  the  Seneeas,  as  follows:  *'As  to 
their  family  system  when  occupying  the  old  log 
houses,  it  is  probable  that  some  one  clan  predom- 
inated, the  women  taking  in  husbands  from  other 
clans,  and  sometimes,  for  a  novelty,  some  of  their 
sons  bringing  in  their  j^oung  wives,  until  they  felt 
brave  enough  to  leave  their  mothers.  Usually  the 
female  portion  ruled  the  house,  and  they  were  doubt- 
less clannish  enough  about  it.  The  stores  were  kept  in 
common,  but  woe  to  the  luckless  husband  or  lover 
who  was  too  shiftless  to  do  his  share  of  the  providing. 
No  matter  how  many  children  or  whatsoever  goods 
he  might  have  in  the  house,  he  might  at  any  time 
be  ordered  to  pick  up  his  blanket  and  budge,  and 
after  such  orders  it  would  not  be  healthful  for  him 
to  attempt  to  disobey.  The  house  would  be  too  hot 
for  him  and,  unless  saved  l)y  some  aunt  or  grand- 
mother, he  must  retreat  to  his  own  elan.  .  .  .  The 
women  were  in  great  power  among  the  clans  as 
everywhere  else.  They  did  not  hesitate,  when  occa- 
sion required,  'to  knock  off  the  horns,'  as  it  was 
technically  called,  from  the  head  of  a  chief,  and  send 
him  back  to  the  ranks  of  the  warriors.  The  original 
nomination  of  the  chiefs  rested  with  them." 

From  the  above  letter,  it  is  evident  that  even  after 

75 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

descent  was  changed  to  the  male  line,  the  power  in 
the  gens  continued  to  rest  with  woman.  She  was  the 
centre  around  which  society  formed  itself.  She  nom- 
inated and  dismissed  the  chiefs  at  her  will,  but  we 
may  be  sure  that  in  the  latter  case  it  was  for  some 
abuse  of  power.  The  children  were  hers,  and  not 
in  any  sense  the  father's.  She  sent  him  forth  when 
his  conduct  fell  below  her  standard,  and  doubtless 
his  native  biological  indolence  often  forced  her  to 
compel  him  "  to  budge."  She  was  economically  inde- 
pendent of  him,  and  could  support  her  own  family. 
To  support  was  her  heritage.  One  step  backward  in 
time  and  she  was  unquestionably  chief  and  sole  ruler. 
A  woman  was  chief  among  the  Winnebagos  in  the 
period  we  have  been  considering,  and  this  was,  of 
course,  not  an  isolated  but  a  residual  fact. 

If  we  glance  for  a  moment  at  our  own  social  ar- 
rangements we  see  that,  notwithstanding  that  woman 
has  been  held  in  subjection  for  ages,  she  has  grad- 
ually but  surely  extended  her  sphere  of  influence 
over  him  and  affairs  till  her  abitrement  is  almost 
decisive.  So  it  must  have  been  in  early  society ;  man, 
from  a  position  at  first  of  total  subordination  in 
affairs,  increased  his  influence  by  degrees  till  he  had 
an  equal  voice  in  making  the  laws  and  was  elected 
chief.  But  so  long  as  he  left  no  lineal  descendants 
who  bore  his  name,  and  in  part  belonged  to  him,  he 
was  a  minor  factor  in  the  life  of  the  tribe. 

76 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

The  change  from  descent  in  the  female  line  to  the 
male  line,  began  somewhere  about  the  middle  of  bar- 
barism. In  a  very  few  cases  it  was  completed  earlier 
but  like  all  movements  it  was  irregular  in  point  of 
time,  and  the  one  phase  overlapped  the  other.  Here 
again,  as  in  sex  differentiation  in  the  animal  world, 
we  find  this  providential  provision  of  the  different 
phases  existing  side  by  side,  so  that  humanity  may 
not  be  left  in  the  dark,  as  to  those  questions  which 
are  of  vital  interest  to  it,  but  may  trace  its  descent 
and  progress  in  unbroken  sequence.  Among  many  of 
the  leading  tribes  it  was  not  completed  until  shortly 
before  the  dawn  of  history  which  is  co-eval  with  civ- 
ilisation, while  on  the  continent  of  America  it  sur- 
vived that  period  by  fifteen  hundred  years.  That 
woman's  gift  for  government  is  biological  is  unques- 
tionable when  the  social  unit  established  by  her,  in 
the  infancy  of  the  species,  was  sufficiently  coherent 
to  continue  to  meet  the  needs  of  society,  and  to 
develop  through  the  succeeding  period  of  barbar- 
ism and  well  on  into  civilisation. 

The  two  chief  causes  which  brought  about  the 
change,  were  the  realisation  of  the  father's  rights  in 
the  children,  and  the  accumulation  of  property  in 
the  hands  of  individuals,  for  under  the  gentile  sys- 
tem, property  was  communal,  and  could  not  be  alien- 
ated from  the  gens.  The  paternity  of  the  father 
being  finally  established,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  rao- 

77 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

mentous  changes  would  follow.  The  mother  was  no 
longer  the  sole  parent,  the  father  now  had  vested 
rights  in  the  children,  and  naturally  would  seek  to 
exercise  those  rights.  This  would  obviously  lead  in 
time  to  another  curtailing  of  the  rights  which  had 
always  been  hers,  that  of  selection,  for  why  should 
the  being  who  was  inferior  in  size  and  muscle  have 
the  rights,  which  manifestly  belonged  to  the  one  who 
could,  by  virtue  of  this  ability,  dominate  the  situation  ? 
By  these  successive  steps,  covering  doubtless  long 
periods  of  time,  for  mental  growth  is  a  slow  process, 
man  gained  a  knowledge  of  his  power,  but  unfor- 
tunately, without  having  gained  any  corresponding 
altruistic  sentiment,  so  the  balance  of  power  was 
slowly  leaning  towards  the  male  sex,  whose  biological 
inheritance  did  not  fit  him  to  wield  it  with  any 
restraint,  and  whose  subsequent  experience  had  not, 
and  was  not,  for  long  ages  to  come,  to  supply  the 
deficiency.  "Having,"  Mr.  Ward  says,  "become 
larger  and  physically  stronger  than  woman,  his 
egoistic  reason  unfettered  by  any  such  sentiment  as 
sympathy,  and,  therefore,  wholly  devoid  of  moral 
perceptions  of  any  kind,  naturally  led  him  to  em- 
ploy his  superior  strength,  in  exacting  from  woman 
whatever  satisfaction  she  could  yield  him.  The  first 
blow  that  he  struck  in  this  direction  wrought  the 
whole  transformation.    The  segis  and  palladium  of  the 

78 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

female  sex  had  been  from  the  beginning  her  power 
of  selection.  This  rational  man  wrested  from  her 
.  .  .and  for  the  mother  of  mankind  all  was  \oy^ 
Man  began  to  learn  the  economic  value  of  woman 
and  to  exert  his  superior  power  in  the  direction  of 
exacting  not  only  favours  but  services  from  her.  He 
saw  that  he  was  the  master  creature,  that  woman  was 
smaller,  weaker,  less  shrewd  and  cunning  than  he, 
and  at  the  same  time  could  be  made  to  contribute  to 
his  pleasures  and  wants,  and  he  proceeded  to  appro- 
priate her  accordingly." 

With  the  change  of  descent  from  the  female  to  the 
male  line,  and  the  gradual  but  steady  increase  of  the 
power  of  man,  the  sentiment  that  governed  society 
would  necessarily  be  changed.  We  have  seen  that 
liberty,  fraternity  and  equality  were  the  bonds  which 
held  it  together,  but  these  were  sentiments  of  which 
man  knew  nothing,  and  just  in  proportion  as  he  ex- 
tended his  power  his  natural  tendencies  would  be 
impressed  on  whatever  he  controlled.  Heretofore 
he  had  been  held  in  check,  and  had  been  admitted 
into  the  community  of  woman  and  child,  by  privilege 
rather  than  as  one  who  had  any  claims,  but  paternity 
put  an  end  to  that  and  turned  the  balance  completely 
in  his  favour. 

Moreover,  as  the  race  multiplied  and  scattered  over 
the  earth,  developing  different  languages,  habits,  and 

79 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

practices,  all  idea  of  a  common  origin  would  be  lost 
so  that  they  would  regard  each  other  with  hostility, 
and  any  encroachment  of  the  one,  on  the  domain  of 
the  other,  would  be  cause  for  war.  With  man  in  the 
lead,  his  long-restrained  biological  tendencies  would 
have  full  sway,  and  he  would  resort  to  the  "  law  of 
battle." 

Another  mighty  influence  was  at  work  in  the  same 
direction — the  increase  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of 
individuals.  In  proportion  as  society  was  becoming 
more  and  more  complex,  as  mental  progress  and 
invention  were  opening  ever  widening  fields  for  in- 
dividual gain,  the  limitations  of  the  gentile  system. 
with  its  communal  property,  were  becoming  irksome. 
In  it  the  gens  was  the  unit,  but  it  was  daily  becom- 
ing more  evident  that  it  would  have  to  give  way,  and 
be  supplemented  by  a  new  system,  in  which  the  in- 
dividual would  be  the  unit,  if  progress  was  to  be 
made.  When  history  opened,  the  two  foremost  races, 
the  Greek  and  Latin,  were  struggling  with  the  prob- 
lem of  how  to  place  society  on  a  political  and  terri- 
torial basis,  a  struggle  which  is  going  on  at  the 
present  time  in  Russia  and  which  gives  rise,  in  the 
efforts  to  resist  it,  to  all  the  plots,  conspiracies  and 
assassinations  which,  from  time  to  time,  shock  the 
world. 

Many  modifications  had  already  been  made  in  the 
80 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

old  system,  forced  upon  it  bj^  the  needs  of  a  growing 
society,  and  the  tendency  to  individual  ownership, 
which  was  steadily  groMdng,  and  which  received  a 
fresh  impetus,  when  it  became  the  custom  for  victo- 
rious military  leaders,  to  keep  as  their  own  property 
the  spoils  of  war  and  the  captured  women.  While 
woman  held  the  reins  of  power  wholly  in  her  own 
hands,  man  had  given  vent  to  his  biological  necessity 
to  fight  by  hunting,  but  when  he  returned  to  the  com- 
munal settlements  he  had  to  abide  by  woman's  laws, 
and  fighting  had  no  place  in  her  economy.  But  with 
his  advent  to  power  war  began,  and  gradually  be- 
came the  law  of  life,  nevertheless,  so  slowly  were  the 
tribal  laws  displaced,  and  so  strong  is  the  force  of 
habit,  that  for  a  long  time  the  spoils  of  war  and  the 
women  of  the  conquered  tribe  became  the  property, 
not  of  individuals  but  the  communal  property,  of  the 
victorious  tribe. 

The  captured  women  and  children  were  adopted 
into  this  tribe  on  terms  of  perfect  equality,  and 
were  given  equal  rights  of  inheritance  in  it.  There 
were  in  those  halcyon  days  no  orphan  cliildren  left 
to  fight  the  battle  of  life  alone.  Under  mother-rule 
there  was  no  distinction  between  mine  and  thine, 
but  as  the  females  of  one  species  in  the  animal  world 
will  often  nurture  the  motherless  young  of  another, 
so  the  unmarred  woman  of  God's  creation,  brought 
6  81 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

lip  the  orphan  on  equal  terms  with  her  own.  But 
under  man  all  was  changed.  Patriarchy  supplanted 
matriarchy,  and  with  this  change  the  old  order  passed 
away.  The  female  who  had  been  since  time  began 
the  "balance  wheel  of  the  biological  system,"  was 
displaced.  She  had  been  the  means  of  raising  the 
male  from  insignificance  to  a  point  where  his  muscle 
told  against  her,  she  had  ruled  society  with  a  firm 
but  kindly  hand,  she  had  planted  and  fostered  the 
arts  of  peace,  but  her  long  reign  was  over,  and  hence- 
forth she  was  to  become  the  slave  of  him  whom  she 
had  virtually  called  into  being.  Muscle  became  the 
measurement  and  standard  of  superiority,  of  sex 
versus  sex,  and  of  tribe  versus  tribe. 

Till  that  time  there  can  be  little  question  that 
woman's  mental  development  compared  favourably 
with  man's.  If  mental  growth  is  the  result  of  use, 
it  certainly  must  have  done  so,  as  a  great  part  of  the 
world's  work  was  done  by  her.  She  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  arts  of  peace  and  of  civilised  life,  she 
organised  a  political  system,  and  guided  and  con- 
trolled it  for  a  period  of  time,  which,  whether  the 
figures  of  its  length  are  right  or  wrong,  must,  by 
the  very  nature  of  things,  have  been  infinitely  longer 
than  all  other  periods,  and  which,  even  when  man 
displaced  her,  continued  to  keep  her  impress  to  the 
end. 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

Comparatively  recent  travellers  learned,  that  in 
several  tribes  the  manner  of  adoption  was  for  the 
chief  woman  to  offer  her  breast  to  the  newcomer, 
in  token  that  she  would  be  a  mother  to  the  adopted, 
and  this  doubtless  was  a  general  method  in  early- 
times,  as  no  other  mode  of  procedure  could  be  so 
natural  and  so  significant.  Traces  of  this  are  to 
be  found  among  the  Romans  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Emperor  Augustus,  for  the  individual  about  to  be 
adopted  into  a  gens,  took  the  hand  of  the  chief  and 
sucked  one  of  his  fingers,  and  this  was  called  "adop- 
tion by  imitation  of  nature." 

It  has  already  been  said  that  with  the  exception 
of  Mr.  Ward,  no  other  sociologist,  and  no  historian 
has  grasped  and  digested  this  matriarchal  phase. 
Having  misplaced  it  in  point  of  time,  they  have 
wholly  lost  its  significance,  and  have  become  inextri- 
cably entangled  in  contradictions,  not  only  in  their 
own  works  but  of  one  another.  Eminent  biologists 
who  have  laboriously  gathered  facts  from  all  quar- 
ters  of  the  globe,  have  spent  much  of  their  labour 
in  vain,  because  they  have  not  been  able  to  make  any 
clear,  connected,  and  convincing  account  of  what 
they  were  endeavouring  to  set  forth.  Their  facts  and 
their  inferences  do  not  harmonise.  As  the  upper  air 
is  full  of  holes  to  the  aviator  that  the  man  on  the 
ground  little  suspects,  so  their  scheme  of  life,  with 

83 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

its  missing  link,  leaves  the  reader  the  possessor  of 
only  a  few  disconnected  and  often  painful  facts, 
which  make  the  riddle  of  life  a  blacker  and  more 
hopeless  pu-zzle  than  it  was  before,  and  obscure  any 
faith  in  a  divine  ordering  of  the  universe  that  he  may 
have  had. 

The  matriarchate,  in  its  pristine  purity,  had 
long  passed  beyond  the  bourne  which  gives  back  no 
sound,  and  the  survivals  which  remained  even  at  the 
earliest  period  with  which  history  deals  were  only 
degenerate,  debased  forms,  for  just  as  soon  as  man 
began  to  take  part  in  affairs,  his  distinguishing  char- 
acteristics left  their  mark,  and  immediately  the  moral 
plane  began  to  be  lowered.  In  consequence,  writers 
in  this  field  have  held  up  to  ridicule  the  idea  of  an 
absolute  rule  by  woman,  or  of  a  higher  and  more 
liberal  social  condition  under  her  sway.  They  find, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  North  American  Indians,  woman 
in  great  power  on  the  one  hand,  but  all  the  offices 
were  held  by  men,  and  notwithstanding  her  political 
and  domestic  influence,  she  was  more  or  less  subject 
to  the  dominion  of  her  husband,  who,  under  certain 
conditions,  had  the  power  of  inflicting  severe  bodily 
chastisement  on  her,  for  things  that  he  himself  was 
at  liberty  to  do  with  impunity.  The  idea  that  the 
period  which  they  were  considering  was  a  far- 
advanced  transitional  one  in  which  man  was  slowly 

84 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

but  surely  tightening  his  hold,  by  abuse  of  his 
muscle,  never  crosses  their  minds,  and  hence  their 
arguments,  denials,  and  inferences  are  completely 
valueless  and  misleading. 

So  with  history.  The  early  story  of  all  great 
nations  reflects  the  matriarchate,  but  without  the  key 
the  student  is  so  bewildered  with  statements  and 
counter-statements  that  he  distrusts  either  the  re- 
liability of  the  historian  or  his  o^ti  mental  capacity 
to  understand  language,  while  myths,  which  are 
priceless  lore,  because  they  almost  invariably  contain 
the  nucleus  of  a  great  truth,  are  regarded  as  the 
creation  of  childish  fancies.  Thus  we  read  of  Greece 
that  "in  early  times  the  children  took  the  names  of 
their  mother,  and  the  Athenian  women  had  like 
their  husbands  the  right  to  suffrage  in  the  political 
assemblies." 

The  legend  which  gives  the  origin  of  the  name  of 
Athens  clearly  indicates  the  passing  of  the  mother- 
right.  It  runs:  "Cecrops,  its  founder,  assembled 
all  the  citizens,  men  and  women,  for  the  women  had 
a  voice  in  the  deliberations.  When  he  had  collected 
all  the  votes,  all  the  men  were  for  Neptune  (Poseidon) 
and  all  the  women  for  Athene,  and  as  the  women  out- 
numbered the  men  by  one,  Athene  carried  the  day. 
Then  Poseidon,  being  irritated,  swamped  the  Athenian 
lands  with  water,  and  to  appease  him,  the  women  were 

85 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

punished  by  three  enactments:  First,  that  hence- 
forth they  should  no  longer  have  a  voice  in  the 
assemblies;  secondly,  that  none  of  their  children 
should  bear  their  name ;  and  thirdly,  that  they  should 
no  longer  be  called  ''Athenians."  This  primitive 
right  of  female  supremacy,  our  author  goes  on  to 
say,  did  not  belong  to  a  single  people,  but  to  a  cer- 
tain period  of  civilisation,  and  is  inherent  in  human 
nature. 

Another  interesting  legend  dealing  with  the  same 
subject  touches  the  characteristic  feature  of  matri- 
archy, and  foreshadows  the  change  that  would  ensue 
if  patriarchy  supplanted  it.  This  legend  represents 
the  gods  assembled  in  solemn  state,  to  give  the  right 
to  change  the  name  of  the  ancient  city  of  Erectheus 
to  the  name  of  the  one  who  should  confer  the  greatest 
gift  on  mankind.  All  the  gods  of  the  Greek  pantheon 
were  seated  on  their  golden  thrones,  with  Zeus,  who 
was  to  give  the  deciding  vote,  seated  above  all.  At 
his  side  sat  Hermes,  the  spokesman  of  the  gods.  Be- 
fore them  were  the  two  rivals,  the  goddess  Athene, 
holding  her  invincible  spear  high  in  her  left  hand,  and 
on  her  ojgis  was  depicted  the  face,  hidden  from 
mortal  sight,  on  which  no  man  might  look  and  live. 
Poseidon  held  in  his  right  hand  the  trident  with 
which  he  smote  the  waters. 

Hermes  announced  that,  "by  the  will  of  Zeus,  the 
86 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

city  should  bear  the  name  of  the  god,  who  should 
bring  forth  out  of  the  earth  the  best  gift  for  man- 
kind. If  by  Poseidon,  then  the  name  should  be 
Poseidonia,  but  if  by  Athene,  then  it  should  be  called 
Athens."  Poseidon  rose  majestically,  and  smote  the 
ground  with  his  massive  trident,  and  the  hills  shook, 
and  the  earth  was  rent  asunder,  and  forthwith 
"sprang  a  horse  the  like  of  which  was  never  seen 
before,  for  beauty,  strength  and  fleetness.  Behold 
my  gift,  said  Poseidon,  and  call  the  city  after  my 
name,  for  who  shall  give  aught  better  to  the  sons 
of  men." 

But  "  Athene  looked  at  the  gods  with  her  keen  grey 
eyes,  and  slowly  stooping  she  planted  in  the  earth 
a  little  seed."  She  spoke  no  word  but  silently  waited, 
and  soon  a  sprout  appeared  above  the  ground,  which 
grew  and  grew,  and  became  greener  and  greener,  and 
its  foliage  spread  wider  and  wider,  and  presently  the 
fruit  appeared  in  clustering  bunches.  "My  gift,  0 
Zeus,"  she  said,  "is  better  than  that  of  Poseidon. 
.  ,  .  The  horse  he  gave  shall  bring  war  and  strife 
and  anguish  to  the  children  of  men ;  my  olive  tree  is 
the  sign  of  peace  and  plenty,  of  health  and  strength, 
of  happiness  and  freedom.  Shall  not  then  the  city 
of  Erectheus  be  called  after  my  name?  " 

The  decision  of  Zeus  was,  that  "the  gift  of  Athene 
was  the  best  that  could  be  given  to  the  children  of 

8T 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

men.  It  is  a  token  that  the  city  shall  be  greater  in 
peace  than  in  war,  nobler  in  its  freedom  than  in  its 
power. ' '  And  as  Athene  walked  away  from  the  scene 
of  the  contest  she  turned,  and  with  uplifted  arm, 
pronounced  these  prophetic  words:  "Here  shall  my 
children  grow  up  in  happiness  and  freedom ;  and 
thither  shall  the  sons  of  men  come  to  learn  of  law  and 
order.  Here  shall  they  see  what  good  things  shall 
be  done  by  mortal  hands,  when  aided  by  the  gods 
who  dwell  on  Olympus ;  and  when  the  torch  of  free- 
dom has  gone  out  of  Athens,  its  light  shall  be  handed 
on  to  other  lands,  and  men  shall  learn  that  my  gift 
is  still  the  best,  and  they  shall  say,  that  reverence 
for  law  and  freedom  of  thought  and  deed  has  come 
to  them  from  the  city  which  bears  the  name  of 
Athene." 

When  we  turn  from  the  realm  of  purely  poetic 
imagery  to  poetic  epic,  we  find  the  same  condition 
set  forth  as  an  actual  fact.  Among  the  earliest 
accounts  of  Grecian  life  and  manners,  are  the  poetic 
poems,  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Homer,  in 
the  ninth  century  before  Christ.  They  indicate  that, 
though  theoretically  woman's  position  was  very  low, 
and  that  she  was  in  complete  subjection,  yet  actually 
and  practically,  she  enjoyed  great  influence  and  lib- 
erty. There  was  no  check  on  her  personal  freedom, 
she  came  and  went  at  her  will,  and  shared  the  home 

88 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

equally  with  her  husband,  dining:  with  him,  visiting 
and  receiving  his  friends  with  him,  going  out  to 
places  of  public  entertainment,  and  to  religious  fes- 
tivals. She  was  not  only  his  housekeeper  but  his 
companion  sharing  the  pleasures  and  labours  of  life 
with  husband  and  sons.  She  was  their  intellectual 
equal  and  was  physically  superior  to  any  race  of 
women  who  have  lived  since.  Their  lives  were  spent 
out  of  doors  and  they  were  tall,  strong,  and  per- 
fectly proportioned. 

But  when  the  historical  period  is  reached,  woman's 
position  has  altered.  Referring  to  this  Mr.  Lecky 
says,  "  a  broad  line  must  be  drawn  between  the 
legendary  or  poetical  period,  as  reflected  in  Homer 
and  perfected  in  the  tragedians,  and  the  later  his- 
torical period.  It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable,  and 
to  some  Avriters,  one  of  the  most  perplexing  facts  in 
the  moral  history  of  Greece,  that,  in  the  former  and 
ruder  period,  w^oman  had  undoubtedly  the  highest 
place,  and  their  types  exhibited  the  highest  perfec- 
tion." Mr.  Grote,  too,  speaking  of  the  same 
phenomenon,  writes,  "  we  find  the  wife  occupying 
a  station  of  great  dignity  and  influence,  though  it  was 
tlie  practice  for  the  husband  to  purchase  her  by  valu- 
able presents  to  her  parents.  She  seems  to  live  in 
less  seclusion,  and  to  enjoy  a  wider  sphere  of  action, 
than  was  allowed  to  her  in  historical  Greece." 

89 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

This  wide  gap  was  in  truth  very  difficult  to  explain, 
and  it  has  puzzled  many  generations  of  readers.  With 
very  little  knowledge  of  the  social  conditions  of  pre- 
historic ages,  and  applying  the  theory  that  is  so 
current  even  to-day,  that  man  from  the  very  begin- 
ning was  the  centre  of  the  organic  and  social  system, 
and  that  woman 's  status  from  the  same  period  was  one 
of  subjection  and  degradation,  and  that  her  present 
improved  status  is  due  to  Christianity,  this  seemed 
a  reversal  of  the  natural  order,  that  could  be  ex- 
plained on  no  philosophical  or  reasonable  hypothesis. 
It  was  not  till  ' '  Das  Mutterrecht ' '  began  to  be  under- 
stood that  the  mystery  vanished,  and  what  had  been 
perplexing  before  the  matriarchate  was  grasped, 
dissolved  as  mists  before  the  morning  sun,  in  the  light 
which  that  institution  sheds  on  primitive  existence. 

The  conditions  pictured  in  the  Homeric  poems, 
instead  of  being  a  reversal  are,  in  point  of  fact,  the 
natural  order,  for  they  show  a  state  of  society  which 
was  still  greatly  influenced  by  female  supremacy,  not- 
withstanding that  it  had  been  supplanted  by  the 
father-right.  This  explains  the  discrepancy  between 
the  theoretical  and  actual  position  of  woman.  Though 
man  had  proclaimed  his  superiority,  the  new  order 
had  not  yet  superceded  the  influence  of  the  old. 
Society  had  to  grow  into  the  new  order  of  things, 
and  many  generations  had  to  pass  away,  till  finally 

90 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

a  new  generation  appeared,  that  was  born  into  the 
new  conception,  and  then  the  new  order  became  the 
natural  order.  It  becomes  evident  from  this,  how 
easily  language  lends  itself  to  inaccuracies,  for  what 
is  called  natural  may  have  come  into  existence  within 
the  short  span  of  a  lifetime. 

That  mother-right  was  still  a  potent  influence  much 
later  than  the  Homeric  period,  is  clear,  for  Herodotus 
says  that  "  in  Lycia  the  children  take  the  mother's 
name  and  not  the  father's.  Ask  a  Lycian  who  he 
is,  and  he  will  answer  by  giving  his  own  name,  that 
of  his  mother,  and  so  on  in  the  female  line.  More- 
over, if  a  free  woman  marry  a  man  who  is  a  slave, 
their  children  are  free  citizens,  but  if  a  man  marry 
a  foreign  woman,  or  live  with  a  concubine,  even 
though  he  be  the  first  person  in  the  state,  the  children 
forfeit  all  the  rights  of  citizenship."  Here  we  find 
a  renmant  of  the  law  of  succession  in  the  gens,  the 
children  follow  the  status  of  the  mother  and  not  of 
the  father. 

That  the  change  from  mother-right  to  father-right 
was  comparatively  recent,  there  is  ample  internal 
evidence,  for  the  myths  and  legends  of  all  countries 
depend  largely,  for  their  romantic  interest,  upon 
woman,  and  they  teem  with  references  to  both  mother- 
right  and,  as  wo  shall  see  later,  to  wife  capture. 
This  could  ])y  no  possibility  have  been   the  case  if 

91 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

woman  had  been,  in  those  early  days,  what  she  became 
later,  of  no  more  value  than  an  ox  or  a  draught  of 
palm  wine.  She  was  the  centre  and  inspiration  of 
poetic  imagery,  and  this  alone  constitutes  indubitable 
evidence  of  her  position.  When  her  fall  was  com- 
plete, the  whole  tone  of  literature  changed,  and 
invective  and  vituperation  succeeded.  She  was  de- 
nounced as  a  demon  and  the  cause  of  all  evil  whom 
only  an  angry  god  could  have  created.  We  are  still 
in  this  phase  of  discernment,  for  the  entire  Orient 
holds  her  as  an  enemy  of  mankind,  and  even  in  the 
most  westerly  countries,  she  is  a  question  of  doubtful 
discussion. 

Roman  history  begins  almost  concurrently  with 
Grecian,  and  in  most  respects  the  position  of  woman 
at  the  beginning  was  similar.  The  records  of  early 
Roman  times  are  meagre,  as  they  were  destroyed  in 
the  fire  of  390  B.C.  and  what  is  known  is  gathered 
chiefly  from  tradition,  but  everywhere  this  indicates 
that  in  the  Romulian  period,  her  freedom  was  un- 
restrained. She  was  the  companion  of  her  husband, 
and  superintended  his  household,  but  among  the 
higher  classes  she  did  not,  as  in  Greece,  do  any  of  the 
labour,  which  was  in  the  hands  of  slaves.  She  pre- 
sided at  liis  table  and  entertained  with  him  their 
mutual  friends.  She  was  living  under  the  influence 
of  the  shadow  of  the  matriarchate,  which  indeed  had 

92 


EARLY  SOCIETY  AND  THE  MATRIARCHATE 

not  wholly  disappeared  from  the  territory  we  now  call 
Italy  for  the  Etruscans  were  still  living  under  female 
supremacy. 

Taking  a  step  backward  in  time,  it  will  be  seen 
that  ancient  Egypt  presents  woman  in  even  a  more 
favourable  light.  She  exercised  great  influence  in 
almost  every  department  in  life,  and  moved  about 
with  the  utmost  freedom.  She  was  much  respected 
by  men  and  husbands  were  not  polygamous.  There 
is  an  entire  absence  in  the  remains  of  early  Egyptian 
sculpture  and  literature  of  that  degrading  vice  which 
polluted  all  orders  of  Grecian  men,  and  left  its  mark 
on  all  they  did.  The  Homeric  legends  themselves 
indicate  a  purer  social  life  for  the  absence  from  them 
of  degraded  women  has  been  commented  on  by  all 
critical  writers.  There  could  be  no  stronger  evidence 
of  female  rule  than  this,  for  where  women  are  free 
and  economically  independent  this  is  not  likely  to 
exist.  In  Egypt  woman  was  on  an  equality  with  man 
in  the  eyes  of  the  law  and  this  has  never  been  the 
case  where  man  was  in  full  sway. 

The  significance  of  the  change  of  descent  which 
gradually  reduced  woman  from  a  commanding  posi- 
tion to  one  of  the  lowest  degradation  was  economical. 
The  foundation  stone  of  society  has  been,  and  prob- 
ably always  will  be,  economics.  In  the  early  stage 
she  was  the  chief  economical  factor,  and  consequently 

93 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  law  giver.  She  did  not  depend  on  man's  labours, 
he  depended  on  hers.  The  land  was  hers,  for  she 
had  reclaimed  it.  The  house  was  hers  for  she  had 
built  it  with  her  own  hands,  or  manufactured  the 
covering  which  sheltered  the  tent.  She  took  man  in 
as  a  husband,  he  did  not  choose  her.  She  did  not  go 
to  his  house,  nor  to  his  people,  he  came  to  her  house, 
and  to  her  people,  and  if  the  tie  which  bound  them 
became  irksome  to  either,  custom  provided  a  means  of 
ending  it. 

Among  many  Arab  tribes,  if  the  woman  no  longer 
approved  of  her  husband,  she  indicated  her  desire 
for  freedom  by  turning  her  tent  around  so  that  it 
faced  the  opposite  direction  at  the  time  of  his  return 
from  what  it  had  when  he  last  left  it,  and  he  took  the 
hint  and  returned  to  his  own  people.  In  some  of 
the  North  American  tribes,  the  wife  placed  her  hus- 
band's personal  effects  outside  of  the  closed  tent  door, 
and  he,  too,  retreated.  Pacific  to  the  end,  before 
abuse  sullied'  and  distorted  her,  woman's  ruling 
methods  were  simple,  direct,  and  devoid  of  harshness 
or  cruelty. 

The  human  family  now  enters  upon  a  period  which 
is  the  blackest  in  its  annals,  a  period  marked  by  con- 
tention, strife,  bloodshed,  and  unspeakable  ferocity, 
a  period  which  has  by  no  means  passed  away,  even 
among  the  most  advanced  nations, 

94. 


Ill 

THE  PATRIARCHATE  AND  THE  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

If  a  being,  part  human,  part  divine,  who  had 
some  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  Creator's  plan 
for  the  uplifting  of  the  human  race,  had  been  upon 
the  earth,  when  the  supremacy  of  woman,  the  mother- 
right,  was  supplanted  by  the  supremacy  of  man,  the 
father-right,  and  who  had  also  some  intuitive  insight, 
some  half-divine  seership  into  the  future,  which 
would  have  enabled  him  to  see,  even  **  as  in  a  glass 
darkly,"  down  the  long  vista  of  the  ages  when  muscle 
held  altruism  in  bondage,  surely  he  must  have  yielded 
up  the  ghost  at  the  contemplation  of  the  Via  Dolorosa 
which  lay  before  the  children  of  men !  If  this  being's 
vision  was  not  sufficiently  occult  to  enable  him  to 
catch  a  view  of  the  promised  land,  when  woman  began 
to  enter  into  her  own — the  right  to  the  free  exercise 
of  her  biological  endowments — and,  if  a  "  thousand 
years  in  his  sight,"  were  not  "  as  yesterday,"  surely 
no  flesh  could  have  stood  before  the  awful  sight  of 
the  human  suffering  Avhich  was  to  be  inflicted  be- 
cause the  ruling  powers  had  no  fitness  for  the  office. 

The  question  sometimes  arises,  even  in  the  most 
reverential  minds,  a])out  the  mercy  and  justice  of  a 
God,  who  called  human  beings  into  existence  when  he 

95 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

knew  what  the  nature  and  extent  of  their  sufferings 
must  be,  in  consequence  of  their  blind  struggling 
towards  the  light.  But  a  closer  glance  at  the  biolog- 
ical plan  will  reveal  that  the  Maker  did  not  intend 
that  it  should  be  a  blind  groping,  but  that  He  had 
specially  guarded  against  this  by  endowing  the 
female  with  qualities  that  would  illumine  the  path, 
and  guide  the  footsteps,  and  that  for  a  time  all  went 
well  and  in  accordance  with  His  intention  as  re- 
vealed in  His  Book  of  nature. 

During  the  period  from  man's  first  appearance  on 
the  globe  till  the  close  of  the  matriarchate,  the  male 
and  female  were  together  fulfilling  the  natural  order. 
Man  had  no  desire  for  any  responsibility  for  he 
had  inherited  none,  and  women  continued  to  bear  the 
yoke  that  had  been  fastened  upon  the  female  from 
time  immemorial.  In  point  of  fact  nothing  had 
changed,  so  gradual  are  nature's  transitions.  Even 
when,  in  the  course  of  time  and  under  the  influence 
of  a  growing  rationalism,  the  desire  for  power  was 
awakened,  and  man  became  the  chief  of  the  gens,  so 
long  as  there  was  joint  rulership  with  the  power  of 
nomination  and  of  the  veto  vested  in  woman,  justice 
continued  to  prevail,  and  the  key  note  of  society  was 
fraternity,  liberty  and  equality. 

But  the  new  rulers  knew  nothing  of  sympathy. 
The  leavening  influence  of  woman  had  not  been  con- 

96 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

tinued  long  enough  to  leave  any  permanent  impres- 
sion, they  had  not  shared  with  her  the  care  of  the 
young,  for  the  young  had  only  recently  been  recog- 
nized as  the  joint  product  of  man  and  woman.  The 
old  biological  Adam  who  fought  for  what  he  wanted 
was  still  uppermost.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history 
of  life  the  male  became  supreme,  and  it  will  be 
evident,  by  a  cursory  review  of  his  methods,  how 
fatal  it  would  have  been  for  the  race  if  the  reins  had 
fallen  at  first  into  his  hands. 

In  the  animal  world  the  differentiation  which  had 
gone  on  was  chiefly  physical,  the  male  was  raised  from 
insignificanee  to  physical  superiority  in  size  and 
muscle,  but  the  change  on  the  moral  plane  was  com- 
paratively slight.  Even  among  the  higher  quadru- 
peds it  has  been  seen  that  the  male  is,  in  reality,  a 
bit  of  a  coward  when  it  comes  to  facing  the  enemies 
of  his  species,  and  that  he  shows  his  courage  chiefly 
in  fighting  with  the  males  of  his  own  kind,  for  the 
gratification  of  his  own  objects,  but  shows  little  re- 
gard for  the  female  or  the  young. 

With  such  a  heritage,  it  is  a  self-evident  fact,  that 
altruistic  sentiments,  such  as  affection  and  sympathy 
could  not  co-exist.  Where  these  high  moral  attributes 
are  not  biological,  it  requires  a  high  degree  of  reason- 
ing power  to  develop  them,  and  this  was  necessarily 
a  matter  of  slow  attainment.  The  savage  or  bar- 
7  97 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

barous  mind  could  not  grasp  such  a  conception  as 
representative  pain,  the  ability  to  put  one's  self  in 
another's  place  and  realise  his  sufferings.  This  is 
done  so  imperfectly  even  now,  that  much  of  the 
sorrow  of  life  is  directly  due  to  the  feebleness  of  this 
power. 

Woman,  because  of  her  biological  endowment  had 
the  instincts  which  led  her  to  love,  cherish,  and 
provide  for  the  young,  she  was  gentler  in  disposition, 
more  peaceful  in  her  habits,  and  less  selfish,  and 
these  qualities  extended  beyond  and  embraced  others 
outside  of  the  circle  of  her  immediate  family,  for 
untrammelled  growth  would  follow  the  line  of  natural 
tendencies.  But  man's  natural  instincts  were 
strongly  set  in  the  opposite  direction.  He  had 
attained  to  what  he  was  by  a  necessity  which  drove 
him  to  engage  in  fierce  contests  with  his  fellows,  and 
this  had  inculcated  a  fighting  temperament  and  a 
keen  insight  which  enabled  him  to  see  the  disadvan- 
tages of  his  neighbour,  and  to  profit  by  them. 

The  result,  therefore,  of  the  usurpation  of  power 
by  man,  in  the  low  state  of  moral  progress  in  which 
he  then  was,  could  only  be  accompanied  with  in- 
finite suffering  to  the  less  muscular  part  of  the  human 
family — the  women  and  children.  He  was  guided  by 
nothing  higher  than  pugnacity,  vanity  and  passion, 
with  a  superadded  rational  faculty,  which  only  dic- 

98 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

tated  to  him  how  he  fioiild  best  employ  his  powers 
to  ensure  their  greatest  indulgence.  He  was  in  the 
condition  that  the  Apostle  Paul  speaks  of  when  he 
said,  "  But  the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things 
of  the  spirit  of  God;  for  they  are  foolishness  unto 
Him;  neither  can  He  know  them,  because  they  are 
spiritually  discerned.  Howbeit,  that  was  not  first 
which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural;  and 
afterward  that  which  is  spiritual." 

"When  father-rule  was  completely  established, 
woman  lost  all  independence,  not  only  economically 
but  over  her  own  pereon.  By  heritage  might  con- 
stituted right  to  man,  it  was  the  only  law  of  his  being. 
The  males  in  the  lower  world  had  not  used  it  towards 
the  females  because  having  begun  in  insignificance 
they  had  to  seek  her  favour  by  pleasing  her,  they  had 
to  win  her  because  they  could  not  compel  her.  This 
heritage  of  the  male  was  shared  by  man  till  he  learned 
of  his  fatherhood.  But  fatherhood  meant  power,  and 
the  savage  male  argued  to  the  same  effect,  at  least, 
as  Napoleon  did  about  a  hundred  years  ago,  when  he 
said  "woman  is  given  to  man  to  bring  forth  children, 
woman  is  our  property,  we  are  not  hers,  for  she 
gives  us  children  and  man  does  not  give  any  to  her, 
she  is  therefore  his  property  as  the  tree  is  that  of  the 
gardener.  A  single  woman  cannot  suffice  for  a  man 
for  that  purpose.     She  cannot  be  his  wife  when  she 

99 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

is  sick,  she  ceases  to  be  his  wife  when  she  can  no 
longer  give  him  children.  Man,  whom  nature  does 
not  arrest  either  by  age  or  any  of  these  inconve- 
niences, should  therefore  have  several  wives. ' ' 

With  this  mental  attitude,  and  with  no  restraining 
influence  to  hold  his  native  combativeness  in  check, 
it  was  inevitable  that  he  should  bend  the  less  muscu- 
lar beiag  to  do  his  will,  and  the  more  he  was  able 
to  bend  her,  the  more  he  despised  her  and  the  more 
he  believed  that  she  was  made  solely  and  simply  for 
his  pleasure  and  service. 

"  I  will  be  master  of  mine  own. 
She  is  my  goods,  my  chattels;   she  is  my  house, 
My  household  stuff,  my  field,  my  barn, 
My  horse,  my  ox,  my  ass,  my  anything." 

and  he  proceeded  to  take  possession  of  his  anything 
in  the  only  way  he  knew  how. 

His  quarrels  with  his  fellows  in  the  lower  world 
had  been  to  prevent  them  from  having  the  female, 
but  his  new  knowledge  of  his  own  power  made  him 
more  direct  in  his  methods  and  led  him  at  the  same 
time  to  follow  the  line  of  the  least  resistance.  It  was 
fraught  with  less  danger  and  exertion  to  himself  to 
fight  with  the  woman  than  about  her,  so  he  used 
his  newly-acquired  power  of  selection  by  capturing 

100 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

her,  and  thus  remained  constant  to  his  biological  in- 
heritance '^  to  pair  with  any  female." 

The  old  Greek  legends  preserve  many  nature 
stories  which  refer  to  this  universal  custom,  for 
nature  does  not  merely  consist  of  elements  or  of 
changing  seasons,  or  of  light  and  darkness,  but,  as 
well,  of  those  emotions  or  instincts  which  preside  over 
conduct.  Thus  two  birds  may  be  killed  by  the  same 
stone,  and  Pluto  carrjnng  off  Ceres,  and  the  bull, 
Europa,  the  flight  of  the  Danaids  from  the  Egyptus, 
of  Arethuse  from  Alpheus,  refer  not  only  to  the 
physical  life  of  nature  herself  but  of  mankind  and 
illustrate  each  equally  aptly. 

From  being  at  first  the  prerogative  of  the  military 
leaders,  the  possession  of  captive  women  became  uni- 
versal, and  tribal  wars  were  engaged  in  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  seizing  the  women  and  the  wealth.  This 
stage  preceded  the  annexing  of  the  territory,  for  the 
idea  of  the  state  was  not  yet  conceived.  The  early 
custom  was  to  seize  the  women  and  cattle,  and  to  put 
the  men  to  death.  All  of  the  ancient  races  passed 
through  this  social  phase.  It  became  in  many  coun- 
tries a  legalised  form  of  marriage.  In  India  it  was 
one  of  the  eight  legal  forms,  and  is  called  Rachasa. 
"  The  seizure  of  a  maiden  by  force  from  her  house, 
while  she  weeps  and  calls  for  assistance,  after  her 
kinsmen   and   friends   have   been   slain   in   battle   or 

101 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

wounded  and  their  houses  broken  open,"  so  reads 
the  law. 

In  the  biblical  Hebrew  scriptures  we  read,  that 
if  the  foreign  cities  which  the  Israelitish  army  com- 
manded to  surrender  refused,  then  the  army  of 
Israel  "  shall  smite  every  male  thereof  with  the  edge 
of  the  sword;  but  the  women  and  the  little  ones,  and 
the  cattle  and  all  that  is  in  the  city,  even  all  the 
spoil  thereof,  thou  shall  take  unto  thyself."  In  the 
last  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Judges  a  raid  is  described, 
which  had  for  its  sole  object  the  procuring  of  wives. 

Internal  trouble  had  broken  out  among  the  tribes 
of  Israel,  and  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  had  fallen  into 
such  disfavour  that  the  other  tribes  swore  that  they 
would  not  permit  their  daughters  to  marry  a  Ben- 
jamite.  Regretting  afterwards  their  hasty  oath,  they 
were  anxious  to  see  them  provided  with  wives,  for 
the  Benjamites  had  been  depleted  by  slaughter  and 
had  to  be  replenished,  so  they  conspired  together  to 
put  to  the  sword  all  the  inhabitants  of  Jabesh-Gilead, 
except  the  unmarried  women — some  four  hundred  in 
number — who  were  given  to  the  Benjamites  as  wives. 
But  as  this  was  not  sufficient,  another  capture  was 
arranged,  "  Behold,  there  is  a  feast  of  the  Lord  in 
Shiloh  yearly,  in  a  place  which  is  on  the  north  side 
of  Bethel.  .  .  ,  Therefore  they  commanded  the 
children  of  Benjamin  saying,  Go  lie  in  wait  and  see 

102 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

and  behold  if  the  daughters  of  Shiloh  come  out  to 
dance,  then  come  ye  out  of  the  vineyards,  and  catch 
you  every  man  his  wife  of  the  daughters  of  Shiloh. 
.  .  .  And  the  children  of  Benjamin  did  so  and 
took  them  wives,  according  to  their  numbers,  of  them 
that  danced,  whom  thej  caught.  And  they  went  and 
returned  to  their  inheritance." 

Sir  Henry  Maine  records  a  copy  of  an  Egyptian 
inscription,  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  in  which  the  re- 
sults of  several  similar  expeditions  are  detailed,  the 
men  being  put  to  death,  while  the  women,  bulls,  and 
horned  cattle  were  carried  otf.  It  was  a  recognised 
form  of  marriage  for  the  plebeians  in  the  early  his- 
torical period  in  Rome.  Every  boy  and  girl  is  familiar 
with  the  rape  of  the  Sabines.  There  is  ample 
evidence  that  it  was  customary  in  Greece  and  Arabia, 
and  it  is  still  customary  among  some  peoples,  notably 
the  native  Australians. 

As  an  illustration  of  how  tenacious  the  brain  cells 
are  of  all  past  experiences  recorded  on  them,  a  sug- 
gestion adopted  by  a  member  of  a  state  senate  of 
the  United  States  in  1865  is  worthy  of  note.  The 
governor  of  Massachusetts,  in  his  message  to  the 
legislature,  proposed  that  the  state  should  assist 
young  women  "  who  are  leading  anxious  and  aimless 
lives  in  New  England  "  to  emigrate  west  where  they 
could   find   openings   as   teachers,    as   well   as   other 

103 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

appropriate  callings.  As  a  result  of  this  the  senator 
above  referred  to  actually  proposed  to  that  body,  that 
"  the  anxious  and  aimless  women  of  Massachusetts 
should  assemble  on  the  Commons  on  a  certain  day  of 
the  year,  and  that  western  men  who  wanted  wives 
should  be  invited  to  come  and  select  them." 

"What  this  worthy  senator  proposed  was  wife  cap- 
ture. All  the  requisites  were  there :  "the  daughters 
of  Shiloh,"  on  the  common,  "  the  Benjamites,"  the 
western  men,  each  to  grab  and  "  then  return  to  his 
own  land."  This  capacity  of  brain  cells  to  retain 
impressions  accounts  for  many  other  untoward  hap- 
penings of  the  present  day. 

An  instance  of  the  treatment  a  captured  woman 
might  receive  is  given  in  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy. 
It  reads,  "  when  thou  goest  to  war  against  thine 
enemies  .  .  .  and  seest  among  the  captives  a  beautiful 
woman  and  hast  a  desire  unto  her,  then  thou  shalt 
bring  her  home  into  thine  house,  and  she  shall  shave 
her  head  and  pare  her  nails  .  .  .  and  it  shall  be  if 
thou  hast  no  delight  in  her,  then  thou  shalt  let  her 
go  whither  she  will."  From  this  it  is  evident  that 
man  had  reduced  woman  to  such  subjection,  that  he 
forced  her  to  assume  outward  and  visible  signs  of  it, 
while  he  was  under  no  obligations  to  her,  but  could 
send  her  forth  when  his  variable  fancy  wearied  of 
her. 

104 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

Sir  George  Gray  gives  a  graphic  account  of  the 
manner  of  wife  capture  in  Australia  as  it  existed 
when  he  visited  it.  ''  Many  plots  are  laid,"  he  says, 
"  to  carry  her  off,  and  in  the  encounters  which  re- 
sult from  these  she  is  almost  certain  to  receive  some 
violent  injury,  for  each  of  the  combatants  orders  her 
to  follow  him  and,  in  the  event  of  her  refusing, 
throws  a  spear  at  her.  The  early  life  of  a  young 
woman  at  all  celebrated  for  beauty  is  generally  one 
continued  series  of  captivity  to  different  masters,  of 
ghastlj^  wounds,  of  wanderings  in  strange  families, 
of  rapid  flights,  of  bad  treatment  from  other  females 
among  whom  she  is  brought  a  stranger  by  her  cap- 
tors; and  rarely  do  you  see  a  form  of  unusual  grace 
and  elegance,  but  it  is  marred  and  scarred  with  the 
furrows  of  old  wounds.  Many  a  female  thus  wanders 
several  hundred  miles  from  the  home  of  her  infancy, 
being  successively  carried  off  to  distant  and  more 
distant  points." 

Mr.  Collins  corroborates  and  supplements  this  pic- 
ture with  one  which  is  little  less  horrible:  ''  The  poor 
wretch  is  stolen  upon  in  the  absence  of  her  protec- 
tors, being  first  stupefied  by  blows,  inflicted  by  clubs 
or  wooden  swords,  on  the  head,  back,  and  shoulders, 
every  one  of  which  is  followed  by  a  stream  of  blood. 
She  is  then  dragged  through  the  woods  by  one  arm, 
with  a  perseverance  and  violence  that  might  be  sup- 

105 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

posed  would  displace  it  from  its  socket.  This  out- 
rage is  not  resented  by  the  relatives  of  the  female, 
who  only  retaliate  by  a  similar  outrage  when  they  find 
an  opportunity." 

In  time  sale  was  resorted  to  as  well,  so  that  there 
was  a  choice  of  methods.  Even  in  the  worst  of  times, 
there  were,  doubtless,  men  whose  nature  was  gentler 
than  that  of  the  average  of  society — ''  the  saving 
remnant. ' '  Moreover  capture  often  entailed  disagree- 
able consequences,  as  the  captor  might  be  obliged  to 
pay  an  indemnity  to  the  former  owner  of  a  valuable 
labour  asset.  Thus  sale  and  capture  were  concur- 
rent when  history  opens,  and  the  former  continued 
till  at  least  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  though 
it  ceased  to  be  openly  designated  by  so  obnoxious  a 
title. 

Both  meant  a  total  loss  of  independence.  Woman 
now  belonged  to  man  by  what  was  to  him  the  most 
fundamental  right.  She  became  assimilated  to,  and 
associated  with,  the  idea  of  property  in  his  mind, 
and  accordingly  he  was  her  "  owner,  master,  lord, 
or  baal, "  and  wherever  these  titles  are  used  for 
husband  it  means  that  descent  has  been  changed  to 
the  male  line,  that  the  woman  follows  the  husband  to 
his  home,  and  is  subject  to  him,  both  as  to  her  person 
and  her  service,  the  children  are  solely  his,  and  he 
alone  has  the  right  of  divorce. 

Thus  any  and  every  way  by  which  a  woman  passed 

106 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

from  one  man  to  another  constituted  marriage.  She 
was  his  property,  and  he  had  the  right  to  use  her  to 
her  fullest  capacity  to  render  service,  whether  for  his 
personal  gratification  or  for  work.  If  a  woman  was 
of  less  value  to  him  than  an  ox  or  anything  else  he 
wanted,  he  disposed  of  her,  and  she  became  the  wife 
and  slave  of  her  new  lord.  We  need  not  look  to 
ancient  Arabia,  Greece,  or  Rome  for  evidences  of 
this.  It  is  not  an  hypothesis  but  a  living  fact,  as 
much  in  vogue  to-day  as  in  the  past,  over  probably 
two-thirds  of  the  globe.  "We  have  but  to  turn  our 
eyes  to  Asia,  eastern  Europe,  native  Africa,  native 
South  America  and  Alaska.  Wherever  woman  is 
completely  in  subjection  to  man  there  is  no  restrain- 
ing influence,  and  everything  he  does,  every  law  he 
makes,  every  tie  he  forms,  is  made  wholly  and  solely 
in  his  interests,  and  v^ath  the  object  of  tightening  his 
hold  over  all  things  religious,  political,  financial, 
social  and  domestic.  This  is  the  logical  sequence  of 
his  endowment. 

Woman  on  the  other  hand  had  absolutely  no  rights. 
The  bearing  of  outward  and  visible  signs  of  her  ser- 
vitude did  not  cease  with  the  Israelites  but  was  com- 
pulsory among  the  Saxons,  and  a  survival  of  the  cut- 
ting of  the  hair  lasted  to  a  late  period  in  Scotland 
where  the  married  woman  dressed  her  hair  differently 
from  the  maiden.  She  was  subject  to  any  abuse  her 
owner  might  see  fit  to  inflict.     Half- fed,  overworked, 

107 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

exposed  to  all  conditions  of  the  weather  with  insuffi- 
cient clothes  to  protect  her  in  cold  regions,  and  merci- 
lessly beaten.  Even  at  this  age  we  are  not  unaccus- 
tomed to  wife  beating,  and  if  it  was  not  for  the  laws 
and  the  sentiment  against  it,  it  would  be  of  daily 
occurrence. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  gave  a  picture  which  is  not 
overdrawn  and  which  is  substantiated  by  all  other 
biologists.  He  says,  "  In  the  history  of  humanity 
as  written,  the  saddest  part  concerns  the  treatment 
of  woman ;  and  had  we  before  us  its  unwritten  his- 
tory, it  would  be  sadder  still.  I  say  the  saddest  part, 
because,  though  there  have  been  many  things  more 
conspicuously  dreadful — cannibalism,  the  torturing  of 
prisoners,  the  sacrificing  of  victims  to  ghosts  and 
gods — ^these  have  been  but  occasional;  whereas  the 
brutal  treatment  of  woman  has  been  universal  and 
constant.  If,  looking  first  at  their  state  of  subjection 
among  the  semi-civilised,  we  pass  to  the  uncivilised 
and  observe  the  lives  of  hardship  borne  by  nearly  all 
of  them,  we  shall  infer,  that  the  amount  of  suffering 
that  has  been  and  is  borne  by  woman  is  utterly 
beyond  imagination.  .  .  .  Utter  absence  of  sympathy, 
made  it  inevitable,  that  woman  should  suffer  from  the 
egoism  of  man,  without  any  limit  save  their  ability  to 
bear  the  entailed  hardships." 

Under  man  the  old  gens  society  gradually  gave 
place  to  the  patriarchal   family  as  seen  among  the 

108 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

Semitic  peoples.  This  group  consisted  of  the  patri- 
arch, his  wife  and  all  the  captured  or  purchased 
wives,  of  his  children,  of  the  wives  and  children  of 
his  sons,  and  of  celibate  men.  The  rule  of  the  patri- 
arch over  this  group  was  absolute.  There  was  no 
freedom  for  any  one.  He  sold  his  daughters,  but  his 
sons  remained  subject  to  him  during  his  life,  and  at 
his  death  the  eldest  succeeded  to  the  inheritance, 
while  the  younger  remained  subject  to  the  eldest. 

It  was  for  this  reason  that  Rebekah  connived  with 
Jacob  to  deceive  his  father,  Isaac.  Esau  and  Jacob 
were  twins,  but  Esau  was  the  first  born  and  the 
patrimony  with  its  rights  of  headship  should  have 
fallen  to  him,  but  Jacob  was  his  mother's  favourite, 
and  she  could  not  endure  the  thought  of  having  him 
a  dependent  and  servant  to  his  brother,  so  she  deter- 
mined to  supplant  Esau.  When  Esau  learned  of  what 
had  happened,  he  entreated  his  father  bitterly,  and 
Isaac  answered  and  said,  "  Behold,  I  have  made  him 
(Jacob)  thy  lord,  and  all  his  brethren  have  I  given 
to  him  for  servants;  and  with  corn  and  wine  have  I 
sustained  him;  and  what  shall  I  do  now  unto  thee 
my  son?" 

The  patriarch  was  head  of  the  family  in  every 
sense.  He  administered  justice  within  the  circle,  he 
could  repudiate  his  wife,  stone  his  children  to  death, 
or  sell  them  into  slavery.  So  far  as  his  household  was 
concerned  he  was  "  a  law  unto  himself,"  and  his 

109 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

landed  property  and  dependents  constituted  a  state 
within  a  state,  for  the  community  or  governing  body 
whatsoever  its  nature  took  no  cognisance  of  his  pri- 
vate chattels.  Every  one  had  to  yield  him  unques- 
tioning obedience,  and  there  was  no  court  of  appeal. 
Mr.  Ward  says  "  that  the  original  patriarchal  family 
implies  marriage  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  implied 
in  a  harem  of  seals  on  a  rookery  under  the  dominion 
of  an  old  bull,  less  so,  in  fact,  for,  although  we  are 
told  that  the  bull  does  sometimes  bite  his  refractory 
cows,  he  never  abuses  nor  injures  them,  much  less 
kills  and  eats  them.  That  function  is  reserved  for 
*  the  Lord  of  creation, '  the  only  being  endowed  with 
a  moral  sense,  made  in  the  image  of  His  creator." 

The  patriarchal  family  is  the  basis  of  Indian  so- 
ciety, and  obtains  in  a  sort  of  village  community 
immune  from  the  national  law  in  eastern  Russia.  It 
is  the  cause  of  much  of  the  political  discontent  in 
those  countries,  and  it  greatly  harasses  the  central 
governments  in  their  attempts  to  place  an  archaic 
society  on  a  unit  basis.  These  patriarchal  and  village 
heads,  dominating  over  large  numbers  of  people  who 
are  wholly  subject  to  the  arbitrary  will  of  one  man, 
resent  bitterly  the  effort  to  make  them  subject  to  law 
and  to  set  free  and  individualise  what  they  regard  as 
their  personal  property. 

Every  one  in  this  patriarchal  group  worked  except 
the  head,  and  the  greater  the  number  of  his  wives 

110 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

and  children,  and  children's  children,  the  richer  he 
became,  and  the  more  at  liberty  to  entertain  himself 
with  the  pleasures  of  the  chase  whether  of  animals 
or  man.  The  frequency  with  which  the  Old  Testa- 
ment alludes  to  the  coming  of  the  time  of  the  year, 
"  when  the  kings  went  out  to  battle  "  indicates  that, 
as  regularly  as  the  Spring  came  round,  while  the 
women,  children,  and  slaves  were  tilling  the  fields 
and  caring  for  the  flocks,  the  patriarchs  and  rulers 
were  off  indulging  in  their  favourite  sport  of  man 
hunting. 

The  position  of  the  chief  wife,  which  some  writers 
set  forth  as  one  of  especial  honour,  is  clearly  indicated 
in  the  Abrahamic  story.  Abraham  had,  in  addition 
to  Sarai,  as  many  captured  or  purchased  wives  as 
he  desired.  In  order  to  maintain  a  household  of  this 
kind,  the  chief  wife  became  the  head  over  the  other 
wives,  and  their  children,  by  that  kind  of  absurd 
sophistry  that  man  is  so  fertile  in  conceiving,  became 
her  children,  but  none  of  these  children  inherited 
anything.  But  though  Sarai  was  the  chief  wnfe  of 
an  immensely  wealthy  man,  who  had  servants  and 
maid-servants  in  abundance,  that  is,  concubines,  she 
was  ordered  by  her  husband  to  bake  bread  for  his 
guests.  Her  position  was  that  of  a  menial  on  the  level 
with  the  other  purchased  women  and  wholly  subject 
to  the  rule  of  her  "  baal." 

The  regard  man  had  for  his  children,  with  the  ex- 
111 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

ception  of  the  one  who  was  to  perpetuate  his  house 
and  worship  him  after  death,  is  also  illustrated  by  the 
story  of  Abraham.  At  Sarai's  request,  Ishmael,  this 
particular  son  of  her  handmaid,  for  doubtless  Hagar 
had  many  other  children  of  whom  Abraham  was  the 
father,  was  made  heir  to  Abraham's  rich  estate.  But 
with  the  unexpected  appearance  of  Isaac  the  situation 
was  complicated.  By  all  rules  of  custom  Isaac  alone 
was  heir,  and  to  ensvire  this  right  of  her  son,  Sarai 
was  importunate  for  the  removal  of  Ishmael,  his 
rival,  by  her  own  decree.  And  the  lad  was  driven 
away. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  human  family 
first  emerged  in  Asia,  as  everything  in  life  has  had 
its  beginnings  in  the  Orient.  There  man's  supremacy 
reached  its  highest  point  and  remains  as  unshaken 
as  it  was  in  the  time  of  Abraham.  There  is  no  liberty 
for  woman  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  every  hour  of 
her  life  she  is  man-ridden.  It  is  a  cardinal  principle 
that  "  a  man,  both  night  and  day,  must  keep  his  wife 
so  much  in  subjection,  that  she  is  by  no  means  mis- 
tress of  her  own  actions,"  and  the  laws  are  so  strict 
in  their  operation  that  "  a  Hindoo  mother  frequently 
becomes  the  ward  of  her  own  son."  She  is  at  first 
under  the  dominion  of  her  father,  then  of  her  hus- 
band, and  finally,  if  uddowed,  under  that  of  her  son. 
If  she  bears  no  children  the  Code  of  Manu  authorises 

112 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

her  husband  to  repudiate  her.  If  she  is  the  mother  of 
female  children  only,  she  is  accounted  little  better  than 
the  childless  one. 

The  marriage  ceremony  as  carried  on  to-day  among 
some  tribes  is  a  sufficient  evidence  of  the  way  woman 
is  esteemed  where  man  is  supreme.  Among  the  Todas, 
a  hill  tribe  of  northern  India,  the  ceremony  consists 
in  the  bride's  stooping  over  and  putting  her  head 
down,  while  the  groom  puts  first  the  right  foot  and 
then  the  left  on  it,  after  which  he  orders  her  to  fetch 
water  and  cook  the  meal.  In  some  parts  of  eastern 
Russia  the  father  gives  his  daughter,  who  has  just 
been  married,  a  few  cuts  of  the  whip  as  a  finale  to 
the  ceremony  and  a  warning  of  what  she  is  to  expect 
if  she  disobeys  her  husband.  Among  the  Maories  of 
New  Zealand,  it  was  customary  for  the  father  or 
brother,  after  a  daughter  or  sister  had  been  bargained 
off,  to  say  to  the  purchaser,  "  take  her,  she  is  yours, 
eat  her,  beat  her,  kill  her,  or  do  as  you  like,"  while 
the  native  Australian  announced  that  he  wanted  a 
wife  to  find  and  cook  his  meals  for  him,  to  get  the 
wood,  carry  the  water,  and  any  other  thing  that  he 
needed. 

It  is  manifest  that  among  our  ancestors,  marriage 
was  not  regarded  as  a  good  in  itself,  but  was  looked 
at  only  from  the  side  of  service  and  appetite.  Each 
man  wanted  a  son  to  gratify  his  vanity  by  perpetiiat- 

8  113 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

ing  the  family  name  among  the  living,  and  to  render 
to  departed  ancestors  the  worship  due  to  the  dead. 
This  could  only  be  done  by  a  male  descendant,  and 
this  worship  was  rendered  only  to  fathers  and  their 
male  forbears,  but  never  to  the  mother  or  her  ascend- 
ants. Manu's  Code  says,  "  no  worship  is  allowed  to 
women  apart  from  their  husbands;  no  religious  rite; 
no  ceremony;  no  fasting;  as  far  only  as  a  woman 
honours  her  lord  so  far  is  she  exalted  in  heaven." 
This  was  also  the  religious  code  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

This  was  equivalent  to  denying  to  woman  any  hope 
of  immortality.  She  was  neither  to  be  worshipped, 
nor  allowed  to  offer  any  worship  to  the  dead  though 
she  might  join  in  it  when  offered  by  a  man,  for  the 
shades  of  the  departed  males  were  willing  to  accept 
adulation  from  anybody,  however  inferior;  like  the 
peacocks  they  would  accept  homage  from  the  pigs, 
but  it  was  not  effective  to  immortality.  Thus  the 
vanity  which  was  one  of  the  distinguishing  traits  of 
the  higher  males  in  the  world  below  man  had  not  lost 
one  whit  of  its  intensity,  for  it  led  him  to  assert  that, 
for  woman,  the  only  object  of  worship  was  the  male 
principle,  in  the  person  of  her  husband  and  his 
ancestors. 

Man's  claim  to  sole  parentage  was  not  due  to  love, 
for  he  gave  himself  legal  right  to  put  them  to  death 
at  his  will.     Moreover,  daughters  were  most  unwel- 

114 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

come,  nor  are  they  too  cordially  received  anywhere 
even  to-day  though  this  impress  of  man  on  society 
is  slowly  passing  away  in  the  West.  In  the  East,  how- 
ever, it  is  as  potent  as  ever.  A  IMount  Lebanon 
proverb  says,  that  "  the  threshold  weeps  for  forty 
days  when  a  girl  is  born,"  and  it  may  be  expanded 
into  an  Oriental  proverb.  All  manner  of  supersti- 
tious practices  are  resorted  to  by  the  parents  before  a 
child  is  born,  to  propitiate  the  gods  and  ward  off  the 
evil  spirits,  that  it  may  not  be  a  female,  for  the 
universal  belief  is  that  boys  come  from  the  gods  and 
girls  from  the  demons;  boys  are  a  blessing,  girls  a 
curse. 

The  boy  is  welcomed  Avith  excessive  feasting  and 
rejoicing,  but  grief  and  sorrow,  if  not  actual  fault 
finding  and  abuse  of  the  mother,  attend  the  advent  of 
the  girl.  Those  who  assemble,  when  they  learn  that 
a  daughter  has  come  into  the  world,  show  infinite 
disgust,  and  leave  saying  that  it  is  nothing.  Girls 
are  never  reckoned  among  the  children.  Ask  a 
Mahommedan  father  how  many  children  he  has,  and, 
though  there  may  be  three  girls  and  two  sons,  he 
will  answer  two.  The  names  they  sometimes  receive 
both  in  China  and  India  tell  the  tale:  "  Weary," 
"  Bitter,"  "  Ought-to-have-been-a-boy,"  and  "  Not- 
Wanted  "  are  samples. 

It  is  not  surprising  with  this  attitude  that  whole- 

115 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

sale  murder  of  female  infants  has  been  practised  for 
ages.  They  were  regarded  as  useless  except  for  the 
sex  function  and  while  men  were  glad  enough  to  avail 
themselves  of  the  female  livestock  of  others,  they 
were  not  willing  to  bring  up  any  themselves  even  in 
the  interests  of  the  race.  The  benefit  of  the  race  is 
largely  a  catch  phrase  that  is  bandied  about  chiefly 
to  cover  deeds  whose  consequences  are  directly 
opposed  to  its  benefit.  Every  one  acts  almost 
altogether  in  his  own  interests,  and  it  is  only  as  per- 
sonal interests  are  seen  to  lie  on  a  higher  plane,  that 
humanity  ever  moves  forward.  But  in  a  purely  man- 
governed  society  this  can  never  be  seen,  and  China 
and  India  are  proof  of  it. 

In  the  latter,  it  was  not  till  a  western  land  stepped 
in,  whose  men  had  been  slowly  redeemed  from  pure 
barbarism  by  the  restraining  influence  of  the 
*'  biological  balance  wheel,"  that  this  hideous  prac- 
tice was  stopped,  while  in  China,  though  a  feeble, 
half-hearted  law  declares  it  illegal,  it  still  seems  to  be 
in  some  degree  a  national  custom.  In  any  case  until 
recent  years  female  children  were  exposed  all  over 
the  land,  left  on  the  roadside  to  die  or  be  worried  by 
the  dogs,  and  according  to  the  statement  of  a  recent 
traveller,  all  young  children,  if  sick  unto  death,  are 
carried  out  before  the  end  comes  and  left  on  the  ash 
heap,  roadside  or  elsewhere,  that  they  may  not  die 
in  the  house  and  the  evil  spirit  remain  to  haunt  it. 

116 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

To  such  a  degree  was  this  destruction  of  female 
children  carried,  that  in  ancient  Rome,  for  race  pur- 
poses, a  father  was  restrained  by  law  from  destroying 
his  first-born  daughter,  though  he  was  at  liberty  to 
consult  his  own  will  as  to  the  others.  The  Roman 
system  was  also  patriarchal,  and  the  word  ''  familia," 
whence  we  get  our  word  family,  meant  slaves.  So 
complete  and  far-reaching  was  the  rule  of  the  pater 
familias  or  slave-driver,  that  "  his  control  over  his 
cattle  is  in  theory  hardly  more  complete  than  over 
his  slaves  and  his  children's  children.  He  is  entitled 
to  enjoy  or  turn  to  account  the  services  of  all.  Until 
w^ell  into  imperial  times,  his  proprietary  right  is  car- 
ried to  its  logical  conclusion.  ...  He  has  the  power 
of  life  and  death,  he  has  complete  control  and  dis- 
position over  their  living  persons  for  purposes  of 
profit  or  chastisement.  ...  He  has  the  right  to 
imprison,  scourge,  keep  to  agricultural  labour  in 
chains,  sell  or  slay  his  children,  and  this,  even  though 
they  may  hold  high  offices  of  state.  That  he  can 
send  his  son  into  a  foreign  country  as  a  slave  appears 
indubitable."  The  only  way  a  son  could  escape  from 
his  father's  control  was  to  be  sold  three  times,  and 
this  happened  not  infrequently.  At  first  in  such  a 
ease  the  son  forfeited  all  rights  of  inheritance. 

Heaviest  of  all  is  the  burden  imposed  on  the  widows 
of  India,  of  whom  there  are  about  23,000,000,  several 
million  being  betAveen  the  ages  of  eight  and  nineteen. 

117 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

These  unfortunates  are  regarded  as  accursed,  for 
widowhood  is  looked  upon  as  a  punishment  for  crimes 
committed  by  the  woman  in  her  former  existence  on 
earth.  The  national  manner  of  disposing  of  this 
creature  was  to  burn  her  alive  on  the  funeral  pyre  of 
her  husband,  the  little  ones  being  flung  back  into  the 
flames  when  they  sought  to  escape.  This  was  for- 
bidden by  the  British  government  in  1829,  but  it  was 
occasionally  practised  in  outlying  districts,  where  the 
arm  of  the  law  did  not  reach,  as  late  as  1877. 

Some  writers  have  endeavoured  to  palliate  this  cus- 
tom by  saying  that  it  was  voluntary  immolation  on 
the  part  of  the  widow,  but  it  is  much  easier  to  credit 
the  man  who  writes,  that  *'  it  was  not  the  devoted 
love  of  the  wife,  who  of  her  own  free  will  chose  to  be 
burnt  to  death,  but  rather  the  callous  and  brutal 
selfishness  of  the  husband,  who,  void  of  the  faintest 
spark  of  true,  loyal  affection,  disregarding  her  inclina- 
tion doomed  her  to  this  fate." 

But  the  abolition  of  the  "  Suttee  "  has  not  deliv- 
ered the  widow  from  her  sufferings.  One  who  is 
familiar  with  conditions  there,  says,  "little  does  the 
outside  world  realise  the  true  state  of  affairs,  for  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  misery  of 
India's  widows.  Only  those  who  have  been  through 
it  know  what  it  means. ' '  A  native  woman  makes  the 
following  statement:   "  The   English  have   abolished 

118 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

Sati ;  but  alas !  neither  the  English  nor  the  angels 
know  what  goes  on  in  our  homes,  and  Hindoos  not 
only  do  not  care  but  think  it  good.  I  am  told  that  in 
England  they  comfort  widow's  hearts;  but  there  is  no 
comfort  for  us.  The  only  difference  for  us  since 
Sati  was  abolished  is  that  we  died  quickly,  if  cruelly, 
then,  but  now  we  die  all  our  lives  in  lingering  pain. 
0  God,  I  pray  Thee,  let  no  more  women  be  born  in 
this  land!" 

In  all  cases  where  the  husband  has  means  and  the 
wife  is  not  obliged  to  do  field  or  other  labour,  she  is 
secluded  from  the  age  of  seven  to  the  end  of  her  days 
and  must  never  show  her  face  even  to  his  male  rela- 
tives. In  consequence,  the  women  live,  as  a  rule,  in 
dark,  dreary  rooms  at  the  rear  of  the  house  or  in  sep- 
arate compounds,  their  mud  huts  have  no  windows, 
only  gratings  near  the  ceiling  so  high  that  no  one  can 
look  either  out  or  in.  Mr.  Frank  Carpenter  in  a 
somewhat  recent  letter  to  an  American  daily  paper, 
and  writing  from  the  spot,  gave  a  description  of  con- 
ditions in  Corea,  which  is  a  faithful  picture  of  a  good 
part  of  the  Orient.  He  called  it,  "  A  New  Corea  Due 
to  New  Woman,"  and  went  on  to  say  that  the  Empress 
rode  in  an  open  carriage  at  her  husband's  side,  and 
that  crowds  of  men  along  the  streets  formed  lines, 
and  were  gazing  at  her  majesty  with  their  "  almond 
eyes  almost  popping  out  of  their  heads  with  surprise. 

119 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

Until  then  no  man  except  the  Emperor  and  the 
eunuchs  of  the  palace  had  ever  seen  the  face  of  female 
royalty.  .  .  .  Until  now  Corean  women  of  the  high 
and  middle  classes  have  been  more  secluded  than  the 
females  of  the  Mahommedan  harems.  They  have 
quarters  of  their  own,  which  are  in  the  rear  of  the 
houses  or  in  special  establishments  far  off  from  those 
of  the  men. 

' '  Some  of  the  noblest  have  never  been  out  of  their 
own  compounds,  and  of  the  middle  classes,  few  go 
out  except  in  close  chairs  even  to-day.  .  .  .  The  hus- 
band has  had  absolute  power  over  his  wife  and  con- 
cubines. They  have  been  bound  to  him  by  fetters  of 
iron,  and  to-day  have  practically  no  rights  which  he 
has  to  respect.  Indeed  the  ten  millions  of  women  who 
inhabit  this  country  are  still,  as  far  as  the  laws  and 
customs  which  now  prevail  go,  practically  slaves.  I 
am  told  that  many  of  them  have  such  strength  of 
character  that  they  rule  their  own  homes,  nevertheless 
the  fact  remains  that  the  men  can  beat  and  mutilate 
them  with  little  fear  of  the  law." 

Passing  westward  we  find  that  the  Grecian  woman, 
too,  has  passed  under  the  yoke  of  patriarchism,  and 
that  nothing  now  remains  of  matriarchism.  It  is  not 
surprising  then  to  find  Athenian  wives  with  no  social 
standing  whatever  they  being  merely  housekeepers 
and  mothers  of  citizens.    "We  have  reached  a  period 

120 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

when  blood  has  become  an  important  factor.  The 
Grecian  city-states  were  jealous  of  the  purity  of  the 
blood  of  their  citizens,  and  a  decree  was  passed  that 
no  one  could  become  a  citizen  who  was  not  the  off- 
spring of  a  citizen  father  and  mother,  and  any  viola- 
tion of  this  law  was  severely  punished,  and  the  guilty 
stranger  who  had  dared  to  mingle  his  blood  with  that 
of  an  Athenian  citizen  was  stripped  of  all  possessions 
and  sold  into  slavery. 

This  desire  for  offspring  that  were  of  undoubted 
parentage  seems  to  have  had  its  origin  in  religious 
conceptions.  The  worship  of  the  departed  spirits  of 
house  fathers  was  common  to  the  Aryan  people,  and 
**  nothing  was  more  dreaded  by  the  early  Greeks,  than 
the  extinction  of  the  family  and  the  extinction  of  the 
house,  by  which  the  dead  lost  their  religious  honour; 
the  household  gods,  their  sacrifices;  the  hearth,  its 
flame,  and  the  ancestors  their  name  among  the  liv- 
ing." For  this  reason  above  all  else,  men  required 
sons  who  were  born  of  women  who  were  daughters 
of  citizens. 

Athens  was  too  commercial  a  city,  however,  to  ex- 
clude strangers,  so  it  chose  the  Indian  method  and 
secluded  its  women  to  ensure  no  admixture  of  the 
race.  Every  male  citizen  had  to  marry  a  daughter 
of  citizen  parents  but  the  men,  having  secured  their 
immortality  and   fulfilled  their  duties  to  the  state, 

121 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

miglit  have  as  many  attachments  with  stranger  women 
as  they  chose.  "  Mistresses  "  says  Demosthenes,  *'  we 
keep  for  pleasure,  concubines  for  daily  attendance  on 
our  persons,  wives  to  bear  us  legitimate  children  and 
to  be  our  faithful  housekeepers." 

Athenian  wives  were  confined  exclusively  to  certain 
quarters  of  the  house,  generally  on  the  second  floor 
so  that  they  might  not  attempt  to  appear  on  the 
streets,  which  was  strictly  forbidden  except  on  certain 
religious  festivals  when  they  were  allowed  to  march 
in  procession,  but  they  had  to  be  totally  enveloped, 
face  and  all,  in  a  sheet-like  garment.  They  never 
left  their  own  quarters,  did  not  dine  with  their  hus- 
bands and  in  no  way  shared  his  life.  They  looked 
after  the  house  and  brought  children  into  the  world, 
and  were  enjoined  to  "  find  exercise  in  folding  and 
unfolding  the  daily  linen  and  putting  it  up  and  tak- 
ing it  down."  Infidelity  on  the  part  of  wives  was  pun- 
ished with  the  greatest  severity.  As  girls  were  mar- 
ried young  they  had  no  mental  training  except  what 
related  to  household  duties,  spinning,  weaving,  cook- 
ing and  the  like,  for  the  Athenian  wife  no  matter 
what  her  station  did  not  hesitate  to  do  household 
work.  The  girl  began  early  to  prepare  for  this  dreary 
existence;  she  knew  nothing  of  the  man  she  married 
for  he  was  chosen  for  her  by  a  father  or  other  rela- 
tive/and her  only  duty  was  to  accept  and  submit. 
^  123 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

'*«O^^Under  such  unnatural  restrictions,  the  Grecian 
fcitizen  wives  could  be  little  better  than  adult  children, 
and  they  were,  in  fact,  nothing  more  than  human  in- 
cubators, since  it  was  expressly  declared  that  the  only 
function  of  maternity  was  to  supply  the  body.  This 
is  one  of  the  most  distinctive  differences  between 
mother  rule  and  father  rule.  Under  the  former 
maternity  had  almost  reached  a  divine  principle, 
under  the  latter  it  was  degraded  to  an  animal  func- 
tion, and  has  not  wholly  risen  above  that  idea  to-day, 
for  whatever  man  could  not  do  himself  by  any  pos- 
sibility, whatever  he  could  not  take  from  woman  was 
belittled  and  regarded  as  fit  only  for  an  inferior 
being  to  do,  such  are  the  various  and  insidious  ways 
in  which  vanity  expresses  itself.  This  attitude  to- 
wards motherhood  was  at  the  base  of  the  large  family, 
it  is  at  the  base  of  the  race  suicide  cry  of  to-day,  a 
cry  that  is  uttered  only  by  men,  and  never  by  the 
sex  which  alone  is  endowed  with  the  ([ualities  that 
enable  her  to  be  the  judge  of  such  matters. 

But  however  much  men  may  abuse  woman,  they 
will  have  female  society;  it  is  as  necessary  to  them 
as  heat  and  light  to  the  plant,  and  the  Athenians 
found  their  companions  among  the  stranger  women. 
In  the  number  of  these  there  were  some  of  remarkable 
and  unsurpassed  ability  and  nobleness  of  character, 
and  the  *'  golden  age  of  Greece  "  became  world  fa- 

123 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

mous,  in  part,  because  of  the  inspiration  and  influence 
of  these  women  on  the  brilliant  men  of  that  most 
brilliant  period  of  the  historical  era. 

These  immortal  women  of  whom  Aspasia,  the  wife 
of  Pericles,  was  the  chief,  must  of  necessity  have 
belonged  to  some  gens  still  living  under  female 
supremacy  or  were  the  descendants  of  those  who  had 
so  recently  passed  under  male  sway,  that  its  blight- 
ing, withering  effects  had  not  had  time  to  work  their 
degradation.  They  were  in  every  respect  the  equals 
of  the  great  men  of  the  time,  and  were  in  some  cases 
their  teachers,  and  they  exhibited  a  high  capacity  of 
the  female  mind  when  allowed  freedom  of  develop- 
ment. Even  those  brilliant  men  themselves  bear  tes- 
timony to  the  effects  of  female  supremacy  on  off- 
spring, for  they  were  the  sons  of  mothers  of  whom  the 
early  Homeric  women  were  the  type,  women  who  had 
not  been  reduced  to  inanity  under  male  dominance. 
Here  is  to  be  found  the  reason  for  the  marvellous  de- 
velopment, physical  and  intellectual,  of  the  Greek 
race.  The  men  of  no  other  nation  have  ever  equalled 
them  since  and  the  historical  world  has  had  but  one 
golden  age.  A  comprehensive,  appreciative  glance 
into  that  limited  period  of  Athenian  history,  which 
stands  marked  off  for  all  time,  shows  what  the  world 
lost  when  muscle  seized  the  reins  of  power  and  re- 
duced altruism  and  female  influence  to  a  state  of 
imbecility. 

134. 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

No  woman  ever  held  such  a  court  as  Aspasia,  and  it 
was  not  a  triumph  of  beauty  of  face  but  of  intellect 
and  soul.  Phidias,  Sophocles,  Anaxagoras,  Euripides, 
and  Socrates  frequented  her  home  and  rejoiced  to 
bask  in  her  presence  and  learn  from  her,  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Socrates  and  Plato,  whose  views  on 
the  equality  of  men  and  women  were  so  pronounced 
that  the  latter  embodied  them  in  his  "  Republic," 
and  the  former  wrote,  that  "  the  female  sex  is  in 
nothing  inferior  to  ours  except  perhaps  in  strength 
and  steadiness  of  judgment,"  were  influenced  by 
their  intercourse  with  these  lofty  minds. 

Whatever  the  view  of  marriage  was  at  that  time, 
it  is  evident  that  it  was  different  from  the  present, 
for  at  the  suggestion  of  Pericles,  the  human  incubator- 
wives  of  these  men  were  brought  to  his  home  to  lis- 
ten to  lectures  delivered  to  them  by  Aspasia,  that  their 
poor,  dull  wits  might  be  bnishcd  up  by  intercourse 
with  her  and  other  famous  women.  Pericles  and  the 
others  saw  the  difference  but  they  had  not  the  in- 
sight which  could  inform  them  of  the  cause.  It  is 
clear  from  this,  however,  that  the  relationship  was  not 
regarded  as  unlawful.  Marriage,  like  all  other  con- 
ditions, has  passed  through  different  phases  and  our 
standard  can  only  be  the  measurement  for  our  own 
period. 

There  was  a  third  class  of  women  in  Athens,  the 

125 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

slaves,  captured  or  otherwise,  and  these  became  the 
tools  of  the  basest  passions  of  the  men.  It  was  im- 
possible that  the  influence  of  a  few  hundred  women, 
placed  midway  between  two  classes,  the  incubators 
and  the  slaves,  who  supplied  the  dancing  girls  to 
entertain  the  gilded  men  at  their  bacchanalian  feasts 
could  be  otherwise  than  temporary.  The  current  was 
flowing  downwards,  woman  sank  lower  and  lower,  and 
as  she  did,  the  immorality  of  the  men  of  Athens 
reached  a  stage  beyond  which  it  was  impossible  to 
sink.  Whether  the  other  Grecian  states  imprisoned 
their  wives,  I  know  not,  except  Sparta,  which  did  not, 
but  certain  it  is,  that  in  no  other  Grecian  state  did 
the  men  sink  to  such  degeneracy  as  in  Athens,  and 
this  would  seem  to  afford  prima  facie  evidence  that 
she  alone  resorted  to  such  extreme  brutality  and  sel- 
fishness. What  a  commentary  on  the  golden  age. 
Intellect  unillumined  with  soul  can  only  shine  with 
a  false  lustre. 

Turning  now  to  the  early  days  of  Sparta,  we  find 
women  playing  an  equally  prominent  part  in  the  life 
of  the  city-state.  The  Spartan  ideal  was  entirely 
different  from  the  Athenian.  In  the  latter,  mind 
ruled,  in  the  former,  the  individual  was  regarded  as 
of  less  importance  than  the  state.  It  would  endure 
while  the  individual  passed  away,  so  the  object  of 
legislation  was  to  secure  its  permanence  on  lasting 

126 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

foundations,  which  could  only  be  done,  according  to 
their  view,  by  sacrificing  the  individual  to  its  welfare. 
The  Spartan  leaders,  still  guided  by  the  influence  of 
the  mother-right,  realised  that  their  object  could  only 
be  attained  provided  the  mothers  possessed  the  qual- 
ities desired  in  the  sons. 

Sparta  was  equally  jealous  of  the  purity  of  the 
blood  of  the  race,  but,  unlike  Athens,  it  secured  this 
by  excluding  strangers  from  the  territory,  except  the 
slave  class,  who  did  all  the  labour,  leaving  the  citizen- 
born  free  to  devote  themselves  to  the  interests  of  the 
state.  The  children  were  regarded  as  belonging  to 
the  state,  and  shortly  after  their  birth  infants  were 
brought  before  commissioners  appointed  to  make 
physical  examinations  of  every  child  and  if  any  were 
found  delicate  or  inferior  they  were  disposed  of  by 
exposure  as  not  being  worth  the  trouble  to  bring 
up. 

The  boys  were  destined  to  be  soldiers  and  the  girls 
to  be  mothers  of  soldiers,  and  hence,  they  were 
required  to  have  exactly  the  same  physical  training 
that  they  might  be  equally  endowed.  So  severe  was 
Spartan  discipline  that  it  has  passed  into  a  proverb. 
If  a  girl  developed  sickliness  she  was  not  allowed  to 
marry  nor  would  she  want  to,  as  it  was  looked  upon 
almost  as  a  crime.    But  few  of  them  did  owing  to  the 

127 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

process  of  elimination.  The  result  was  that  for  sev- 
eral hundred  years  the  Spartans  excelled  in  physical 
health  and  strength  any  people  that  ever  existed. 

But  as  in  Athens,  degeneracy  set  in,  the  men  fell 
from  their  high  estate  and  the  women  are  no  longer 
heard  of.  The  student  of  history  will  have  it  con- 
stantly brought  to  his  notice  that  the  condition  and 
position  of  the  women  in  a  nation  is  the  unfailing 
index  of  the  worth  and  eminence  of  its  men.  The  one 
is  the  reflex  of  the  other.  The  hopeless  vacuity  of  the 
minds  of  women  who  are  never  allowed  into  the 
streets,  who  have  no  intercourse  with  other  minds, 
who  know  nothing  of  the  world  of  affairs,  who  never 
read  a  book  because  they  cannot,  who  are  denied  the 
uplifting  influence  of  the  beauty  of  nature,  its  hills 
and  dales,  trees  and  flowers,  is  infinitely  more 
pathetic  than  any  physical  abuse  they  may  have  to 
endure.  With  such  women  for  mothers  it  cannot  be 
wondered  at  that,  after  a  glory  that  has  never  been 
equalled,  the  history  of  Greece  at  last  presented  a 
picture  so  devoid  of  all  moral  sense  as  to  betray  their 
country  into  the  hands  of  their  enemy.  She  paid  the 
same  penalty  as  her  eastern  neighbours,  for  in  the 
second  century  of  the  Christian  era  she  sank  politi- 
cally till  she  became  but  a  province  of  Rome,  and 
until  recent  years  she  has  never  had  any  independent 
political  history. 

The  wave  of  man's  rule  continued  on  its  western 
128 


J>ATRIARCHATE^N_D  HISTORICAL  J'ilEJflP^ 

course,  and  the  Roman  woman  took  her  place  in  the 
social  scale  similar  to  her  Grecian  sister  though  she 
was  never  secluded  nor  obliged  to  envelop  herself 
when  she  went  out  lest  she  might  be  seen.  Morally 
she  was  expected  to  be  above  reproach,  and  for  any 
violation  her  husband  was  at  liberty  to  put  her  to 
death,  but  no  restrictions  were  put  upon  him.  The 
sentiment  that  governed  their  relations  in  this  respect 
was  expressed  by  Cato,  a  stern,  harsh,  woman-hating 
legislator,  who  said,  "  If  you  were  to  catch  your  wife 
in  an  act  of  infidelity,  you  could  kill  her  with 
impunity,  without  a  trial;  but  if  she  were  to  catch 
you,  she  would  not  venture  to  touch  you  with  her 
finger  and  indeed  she  has  no  right." 

Under  such  circumstances  husbands  separated  from 
their  wives  for  the  most  trivial  causes,  one  repudiat- 
ing her  because  he  found  her  on  the  street  without  a 
veil,  and  another  because  his  wife  had  gone  to  the 
games  without  informing  him'  of  her  intention. 
Women,  too,  were  forbidden  to  taste  wine  and  one 
husband  is  said  to  have  beaten  his  wife  to  death  be- 
cause he  found  her  disobeying  this  injunction.  But 
the  Roman  matrons  were  not  the  kind  of  women  who 
brooked  control  without  making  an  effort  on  their 
own  behalf.  They  maintained  that  they  should  have 
equal  rights  with  the  men,  and  that  the  inequalities 
were  artificial. 

On  two  separate  occasions,  following  an  undue 
9  129 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

exercise  of  authority  on  the  part  of  the  men  they  are 
said  to  have  resorted  to  wholesale  poisoning  of  them. 
Whether  this  was  true  or  not,  the  story  at  least  in- 
dicates a  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  women  to  assert 
themselves,  and  that  their  efforts  were  not  in  vain 
is  indicated  by  the  following  event:  During  the 
Punic  wars  the  senate  passed  sumptuary  laws  as 
a  means  of  relieving  the  heavy  financial  burden. 
When  the  war  was  over  and  the  spoils  began  to  flow 
in  and  money  was  again  free,  the  restrictions  were 
not  removed  from  the  women,  though  the  men  had 
gone  back  to  their  former  indulgences.  The  women 
insisted  on  being  released,  and  it  gave  rise  to  intense 
feeling,  some  of  the  men  being  in  favour  of  it  and 
others  opposing.  But  the  women  were  determined. 
They  went  into  the  streets  and  hailed  the  voters  com- 
ing in  from  the  surrounding  suburbs,  begging  them 
to  assist  in  the  propaganda,  and  despite  all  opposition 
they  had  their  way  and  the  objectionable  law  was 
repealed. 

Their  old  enemy  Cato  spoke  against  them,  saying, 
"  if  men  had  retained  their  rights  and  dignity  in  the 
family,  the  women  would  not  have  broken  out  pub- 
licly in  this  manner.  If  women  had  only  a  proper 
sense  of  shame  they  would  know  that  it  is  not  be- 
coming in  them  to  take  part  in  politics.  If  they  suc- 
ceed who  knows  where  they  will  end?     As  soon  as 

180 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

they  begin  to  be  equal  with  us  they  will  have  the 
advantage  over  us."  If  Cato  had  realised  that  he 
was  admitting  the  superiority  of  women  and  the 
weakness  of  men,  who  can  only  hold  their  own  by 
browbeating  and  exclusion,  he  would  have  been  more 
guarded  in  his  remarks.  But  the  Catoes  are  not  all 
dead,  and  whether  men  realise  it  or  not,  it  is  this 
very  weakness  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  their 
obstruction. 

Owing  to  the  persistent  attitude  of  the  Roman 
matrons,  the  harshness  of  the  early  law  passed  away, 
and  later  Roman  law  offered  her  a  freedom  which  has 
never  been  given  to  her  since.  Under  the  Antonine 
Cffisars  her  legal  status  greatly  improved,  and  the 
equality  of  the  sexes  became  a  principle  of  the  code 
of  ethics.  The  "  Perpetual  Tutelage  "  of  earlier  law 
was  lessened.  The  right  to  seek  divorce  Avas  given 
to  women,  a  privilege  which  must  have  mitigated 
much  suffering. 

The  character  of  the  Roman  matrons  was  reflected 
in  the  men.  Stern,  inflexible,  and  persistent,  they 
^uilt  a  world  empire,  and  their  wives,  by  a  persist- 
ence sustained  by  an  innate  belief  in  their  inalien- 
able right  to  be  free  and  independent,  forced  one  of 
the  most  despotic  of  husbands  to  recognise  those 
rights.  During  the  early  days  of  the  empire,  wives 
accompanied  their  husbands  to  their  provinces,  and 

131 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

assisted  them  in  the  administration  of  its  affairs,  not- 
withstanding that  pressure  was  brought  to  prohibit 
it.  But  with  the  spread  of  Christianity  all  was 
changed  and  lost  for  woman.  Cato  once  said,  "  had 
there  been  no  women  in  the  world,  the  gods  would 
still  have  been  dwelling  with  us,"  but  Cato  was  a  poor 
philosophical  guide,  for  the  preponderance  of  evi- 
dence shows  that  the  gods  and  men  and  state  decline 
with  the  loss  of  woman's  influence,  and  the  Roman 
city-state,  like  Athens  and  Sparta,  passed  away. 

The  fundamental  basis  on  which  patriarchy  rested, 
it  will  be  noticed,  was  the  claim  of  the  sole  parentage 
of  the  father.  This  was  also  the  fundamental  basis 
of  matriarchy,  but  there  wa.s  this  great  difference 
that  matriarchy  was  not  founded  on  a  claim  made  by 
woman  to  exclude  man's  right  of  parentage.  In  her 
case  it  was  ignorance  of  the  truth,  an  ignorance 
shared  equally  by  both  man  and  woman,  and  there 
is  no  echo  of  any  struggle  that  she  engaged  in  to 
•  withhold  his  proprietary  rights  once  they  were  known. 
A  'glance  at  the  animal  world  will  show  that  among 
those  species  of  birds  in  which  the  male  assumes 
some  of  the  responsibilities  of  parenthood  the 
female  accepts  his  assistance  without  protest  or 
jealousy. 

It  is  highly  improbable  that  her  female  descendant 
acted   otherwise.     She  had   taken   man   in   in   those 

132 


PATRIARCHATE  AND  HISTORICAL  PERIOD 

early  days  of  ignorance,  and  had  given  him  the  bene- 
fits of  her  labours.  She  had  made  the  clothes  he  wore 
and  the  tent  covering  which  sheltered  him  equally 
with  her  children  and  herself.  The  fact  that  every 
man  was  some  woman's  child  would  completely  pre- 
clude any  possibility  of  contest.  Contest  was  not  a 
biological  endownnent  of  the  female.  The  only  strug- 
gles she  engaged  in  were  those  dictated  by  a  desire 
to  shelter  and  protect  those  dependent  on  her.  In 
the  case  of  man,  however,  it  was  wholly  different.  His 
one  asset  was  to  seize  and  hold,  exclusively  for  him- 
self, all  that  he  could  grasp,  first  by  muscle  and 
afterwards  by  that  mental  sophistry  in  which  he  is 
a  past  master. 

How  completely  the  pendulum  swung  to  the  other 
side  when  man  knew  of  his  parenthood  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  trial  of  Orestes  in  the  play  of  ^schylus. 
The  mother  of  Orestes,  Clyteninestra,  had  murdered 
her  husband,  Agamemnon,  and  Orestes,  in  turn,  killed 
his  mother  to  avenge  his  father's  death.  When  pros- 
ecuted for  it,  Orestes  asked  why  they  did  not  also 
proceed  against  Clytemnestra  for  the  crime  she  had 
committed.  He  was  told  that  punishment  was  due 
only  to  those  who  took  the  lives  of  relatives,  and  that 
Xio  blood  relation  existed  between  Clytemnestra  and 
Agamemnon.  Orestes  turns  this  to  his  own  advan- 
tage and  claims  that,  by  that  very  fact,  he  also  is 

183 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

immune,  as  lie  is  related  to  his  father  but  not  to  his 
mother.  He  was  supported  in  this  view  by  the  major- 
ity of  the  gods  of  the  pantheon  and  was  acquitted. 

The  more  advanced  western  nations  are  in  the 
throes  of  the  closing  of  the  patriarchate,  and  the  use- 
less struggle  that  is  being  waged  is  a  strong  endorse- 
ment by  man  himself  of  his  own  inherent  and  inher- 
ited selfishness  and  vanity.  But  any  struggle  that 
man  engages  in  with  woman  is  an  unequal  contest. 
The  last  century  is  strewn  with  the  evidences  of  his 
incapacity  to  resist  her  demands.  One  by  one  he  has 
been  forced  to  yield,  for  the  "  fulness  of  time  "  is 
once  more  accomplishing  what  was  decreed  from  the 
very  beginning  by  the  Eternal  Mind,  that  husband 
and  wife,  man  and  woman,  must  be  one  in  power,  one 
in  authority,  one  in  will  to  do  His  will  and  to  accom- 
plish His  work.  Not  matriarchate  and  not  patri- 
archate, but  matriarchate  and  patriarchate  must  move 
forward  in  obedience  to  the  Divine  fiat. 


134 


IV 

MAN  AS  RULER 

So  FAR  we  have  considered  man  only  in  his  relation 
to  woman,  and  we  have  seen  that  in  all  countries  all 
classes  of  men,  regardless  of  intellect,  education,  or 
social  standing — from  the  framers  of  the  law  to  the 
lowest  slaves — have  oppressed  and  abused  her.  We 
shall  now  take  a  hurried  glance  at  him  as  ruler  and 
law  maimer,  as  history  has  portrayed  him.  Here  we 
are  on  terra  firma.  We  have  passed  completely  from 
the  region  of  the  speculative,  from  inductive  or  de- 
ductive logic,  to  fact,  and  here  we  find  the  strongest 
support  for  anything  and  everything  that  has  been 
assumed  in  previous  chapters  as  true  of  the  earlier 
life  of  our  ancestors. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  has  never  been 
any  break  in  the  continuity  of  events  since  life  began 
on  the  globe.  In  every  field  of  activity,  whether 
physical,  industrial,  or  mental,  whether  social,  politi- 
cal, religious  or  domestic,  the  mode  of  procedure  has 
been  the  same ;  namely,  a  gradual  evolving  of  the  first 
germ  of  thought  or  action  to  a  higher,  deeper,  and 
broader  conception,  and  in  orderly  sequence,  from  the 
simple  to  the  more  complex,  modified,  necessarily,  by 
environment  but  witli  its  basic  fact  unchanged. 
There  have  been  no  great  strides,  no  radical  changes; 

135 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

however  revolutionary  progress  may  sometimes  seem 
to  be,  it  will  be  found  on  examination,  that  every  step 
has  been  registered,  and  that  each  was  the  natural 
offspring  of  what  went  before  and  the  parent  of  what 
came  after.  Unorganised  society  was  the  horde,  then 
came  the  gens  or  family,  then  the  clan — ^the  family 
with  its  collateral  branches — then  the  tribe  which 
consisted  of  a  confederation  of  the  clans,  and  lastly, 
the  incipient  state  on  a  territorial  basis.  But  the 
passing  from  the  tribe  to  the  state,  from  communal 
to  individual  ownership,  was  a  slow,  tentative  process, 
and  the  state  is  still  evolving  and  can  only  move  for- 
ward at  the  rate  of  the  average  intelligence  of  its  units. 
The  change  of  government  from  the  absolute  rule 
of  woman  to  the  absolute  rule  of  man,  like  that  from 
horde  to  gens  and  gens  to  state,  was  a  very  gradual 
one,  and  was  made  step  by  step  with  all  possible 
shades  of  division  of  authority.  This  is  one  of  the 
facts  that  has  misled  so  many  sociologists  and  caused 
them  to  deny  and  ridicule  the  theory  that  woman  ever 
exercised  anything  more  than  a  partial  and  limited 
authority.  They  have  not  reckoned  with  man's  in- 
herited tendencies  as  the  ultimate  factor  that  settled 
the  momentous  question  of  who  should  be  the  future 
ruler;  but  muscle  freely  exercised  was  a  powerful 
means  of  increasing  his  influence,  and  finally  led  to 
his  assuming  all  authority. 

136 


MAN  AS  RULER 

War  must  have  begun  long  before  woman  was  forced 
to  lay  down  the  sceptre  completely.  Just  in  proportion 
as  man  forced  his  dominance  he  would  enforce  his 
method  of  settling  all  questions  that  arose  between 
him  and  neighbouring  tribes,  and  there  are  ample  rec- 
ords to  show  that  while  woman  was  able  to  enforce 
her  will  in  some  matters,  she  was  wholly  powerless 
in  others.  We  are  told  that  the  gens  adopted  the  cap- 
tured women  and  children  into  it  on  terms  of  perfect 
equality,  and  this  means,  that  though  she  still  exer- 
cised a  controlling  voice  over  the  social  arrangements, 
she  had  lost  it  in  the  relations  between  the  tribes. 
Fighting  Adam  was  escaping  from  the  leash,  and  his 
deep-seated  inheritance  which  had  not  been  overcome 
or  cast  out,  but  merely  held  in  check,  leaped  to  new 
life.  This  was  man's  first  opportunity  to  indulge 
in  the  free  exercise  of  his  biological  endowments, 
and  the  long  pages  of  history  testify  how  fully  and 
unrestrainedly  he  availed  himself  of  it. 

From  what  we  know  of  man's  nature  it  is  fair  to 
assume  that  woman  was  the  first  cause  of  his  going  to 
war.  She  was  a  most  useful  and  valuable  thing  to 
possess,  and  she  was  an  absolute  necessity  to  him,  if 
he  was  to  follow  his  natural  vocation,  for  she  would 
supply  the  sinews  of  war  by  cultivating  the  fields  and 
bringing  up  sons  to  take  their  place,  in  good  time, 
among  the  ranks  of  the  warriors.     In  addition  those 

137 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

men  who  were  most  liberally  supplied  with  them  be- 
came, by  virtue  of  the  riches  assured  to  them  by  the 
labour  of  the  women,  leaders  and  chiefs  and  generals, 
and  after  every  battle  the  women  were  apportioned 
according  to  the  rank  of  the  officials;  thus  in  the  war 
of  the  Israelites  against  the  Midianites,  the  high 
priest  received  the  largest  portion  and  so  on  down 
through  the  ranks,  and  Pausanias,  the  Grecian  gen- 
eral, after  a  successful  battle  was  awarded  ten  women 
as  his  portion. 

In  the  periods  referred  to  above,  there  was  added 
to  this  the  desire  to  possess  the  movable  property  of 
the  captured  people.  This  was  the  first  step  in  that 
lust  for  unearned  wealth  which  finally  led  to  the 
lust  for  territorial  aggrandisement,  which  has  distin- 
guished all  nations  down  to  the  present  day,  and 
which,  together  with  religious  fanaticism,  has  been 
the  cause  of  all  wars.  A  critical  knowledge  of  the 
evolution  of  property,  Mr.  Morgan  says,  would  em- 
body in  some  respects  the  most  remarkable  portion 
of  the  mental  history  of  mankind. 

In  order  to  ensure  themselves  of  these  objects  of 
desire  wathout  any  reprisals,  it  was  customary  for 
the  victorious  tribe  to  put  all  the  men  of  the  con- 
quered tribe  to  death,  but  cupidity  and  acquisitive- 
ness soon  dictated  another  method.  In  the  tenth 
chapter  of  the  Book  of  Judges  will  be  found  a  spe- 

138 


MAN  AS  RULER 

cious  account  of  the  beginnings  of  the  institution  of 
slavery  among  the  Israelites,  though  it  was  no  new 
conception  with  them  as  they  themselves  had  been 
under  the  yoke.  The  unifonn  success  of  the  Israel- 
itish  army  under  the  command  of  Joshua,  the  Napo- 
leon of  that  ancient  people,  caused  terror  in  the  hearts 
of  neighbouring  kingdoms,  and  the  Gibeonites  took 
counsel  together  as  to  how  they  might  deceive  Joshtia 
and  the  people  of  Israel. 

They  determined  to  send  ambassadors  to  him,  who 
were  to  represent  themselves  as  having  come  from  a 
far  country,  and  to  give  evidence  of  it  by  showing 
their  bread  and  wine,  which  they  had  brought  with 
them  for  sustenance  on  the  journey,  and  which,  by 
reason  of  the  length  of  time  spent  on  the  way  had 
become  dry  and  mouldy,  and  the  bottles  had  cracked, 
while  the  clothes  on  their  backs  and  the  boots  on  their 
feet  had  become  worn  out  and  ragged.  They  had 
heard,  they  said,  of  the  invincibleness  of  the  Israel- 
itish  army,  and  had  come  to  make  a  league  of  peace. 
The  Lord-directed  Joshua  was  caught  in  their  trap, 
and  he  "  made  a  league  of  peace  with  them,  to  let 
them  live,"  but  within  a  few  days,  he  learned  that 
they  were,  in  reality,  of  the  surrounding  country. 
Angered  at  his  credulity — for  one  who  was  so  adept 
himself  in  cunning  as  Joshua  was  could  not  have 
taken  offence  at  that — but  unable  to  break  his  treaty, 

139 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

he  got  around  it  by  cursing  them,  and  declaring  them 
bondsmen  for  all  time ;  and  ' '  Joshua  made  them  that 
day,  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  the 
congregation  and  for  the  altars  of  the  Lord." 

Slavery  was  one  of  the  distinguishing  developments 
of  man  dominance.  Every  tribe  looked  upon  every 
other  tribe  as  its  natural  enemy  and  prey,  and  life 
became  a  long  struggle  for  the  survival  of  the  strong- 
est. This  custom  which  was  in  existence  at  the  dawn 
of  history  lasted  even  among  the  most  advanced 
nations  until  forty  years  ago.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  almost  the  entire  human  family 
was  enslaved.  As  late  as  1855  "  there  were  48,000,000 
serfs  in  Kussia.  In  Hungary  there  were  9,000,000 
in  bondage.  The  pea.sants  in  Austria  and  Prussia 
were  nearly  all  slaves,  while  the  United  States 
trafficked  in  them  until  1863." 

In  the  ancient  monarchies  the  entire  population  was 
practically  in  bondage,  for  so  absolute  was  the  author- 
ity of  autocratic  sovereigns  and  so  devoid  were  they 
of  any  regard  for  the  welfare  of  their  subjects  that 
in  the  short  intervals  when  war  was  not  being  waged, 
the  masses  were  obliged  by  the  government  to  devote 
their  services  to  public  works  totally  without  pay  and 
for  as  long  a  time  as  the  authorities  needed  them, 
and  they  were  subject  to  the  whip  of  brutal  task- 
masters   who    wielded    it    without    mercy.      Kingly 

140 


MAN  AS  RULER 

palaces,  temples,  mausoleums  for  the  great,  such  as 
the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  hanging  gardens,  canals, 
roads,  all  were  built  by  forced  labour.  In  the  case  of 
great  works,  where  the  stone  had  to  be  cut  out  of  the 
solid  granite,  then  shaped  and  carved,  whole  genera- 
tions of  men  had  to  spend  their  lives  in  profitless 
labour. 

Bible  readers  are  familiar  with  the  story  of  the 
Israelites  in  Egypt  who  were  obliged  to  keep  up  the 
same  tale  of  bricks,  when  they  had  to  find  their  own 
straw,  as  when  it  was  supplied  to  them,  and  the  whip 
was  freely  called  into  requisition  to  force  them  to  do 
it.  The  bondage  of  the  Israelites  ''  under  the  pharaoh 
who  knew  not  Joseph,"  is  the  story  in  epitome  of 
all  the  ancient  monarchies,  and  it  is  the  story  to-day 
in  Morocco,  Turkey,  and  other  Mahommedan  coun- 
tries where  any  man  who  is  believed  to  have  money 
is  subject  to  all  manner  of  frightful  cruelties  to 
extort  his  wealth. 

But  the  sufferings  of  the  Israelites  did  not  make 
them  merciful  for,  as  we  have  seen,  when  they  were 
taking  possession  of  the  promised  land,  they 
devastated,  plundered,  and  slayed  in  order  to  possess 
themselves  of  the  territory  and  wealth  of  others. 
Rulers  and  ruled  w^ere  all  alike,  it  was  only  the 
opportunity  that  lacked.  It  is  manifest  that  mercy 
is  not  taught  by  suffering  until  the  reasoning  power 

141 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

is  sufficiently  high  to  have  attained  to  moral 
perception. 

In  Greece  and  Rome  slavery  was  regarded  as  an 
essential  to  the  maintenance  of  an  intellectual  and 
governing  class.  In  the  opinion  of  cultivated  Greeks 
they  were  looked  upon  simply  as  domestic  animals 
possessed  of  intelligence,  and  this  practically  included 
their  wives  and  daughters,  or,  as  Varro  defined  them, 
"  vocal  agricultural  implements."  These  unfortu- 
nates were  often  forced  to  sleep  in  underground 
prisons,  and  to  wear  chains  while  working,  and  when 
they  were  old  and  decrepit  and  useless  they  were 
often  sold  so  as  to  avoid  the  expense  of  supporting 
them. 

The  condition  of  the  greatest  number  of  people,  at 
the  period  of  the  greatest  glory  of  Athens,  can  best 
be  illustrated  by  the  classification  of  its  population 
into  400,000  slaves,  21,000  strangers  and  only  10,000 
citizen  born.  Many  of  these  enslaved  people  were  in 
every  respect  the  equals  of  their  masters.  Among 
them  were  nobles,  law  makers,  and  men  of  culture  in 
their  own  lands,  but  no  consideration  mitigated  their 
position.  They  became  simply  slaves  and  were  reduced 
to  menial  service.  As  they  far  outnumbered  the  free, 
they  soon  rose  against  their  oppressors  and  some  of  the 
bloodiest  wars  of  ancient  history  were  slave  wars. 
So  great  was  the  fear  of  them,  that  it  is  recorded  that 

142 


MAN  AS  RULER 

if  they  became  too  numerous,  they  were  thinned  out 
by  deliberately  planned  massacres. 

The  Spartan  Helots  had  to  dress,  it  is  said,  in  the 
skins  of  wild  animals,  and  they  were  regarded  as  such. 
Any  thought  of  granting  rights  or  privileges  to  them 
would  have  been  scorned  as  imbecility  or  insanity,  as 
Solon  found  to  his  cost,  Avhen  he  tried  to  give  to  cul- 
tured Athens  a  reasonable  constitution,  which,  while 
curbing  the  violence  of  the  nobles,  attempted  to  raise 
the  lower  classes.  But  had  the  position  been  reversed 
the  result  would  have  been  the  same,  for  the  only 
conception  was  the  law  of  force. 

Mr.  John  Stuart  ]Mill  sums  up  the  subject  very 
accurately  in  the  following  words:  "  The  truth  is, 
that  people  of  the  present  and  the  last  two  or  three 
generations  have  lost  all  practical  sense  of  the  prim- 
itive condition  of  humanity,  and  only  the  few  who 
have  studied  history  accurately,  or  have  much  fre- 
quented the  parts  of  the  world  occupied  by  living 
representatives  of  ages  long  past,  are  able  to  form 
any  mental  picture  of  what  society  then  was.  People 
are  not  aware  how  entirely  in  former  ages  the  law 
of  superior  strength  was  the  rule  of  life.  .  .  .  His- 
tory gives  a  cruel  experience  of  human  nature  in 
showing  how  exactly  the  regard  due  to  life,  pos- 
sessions, and  the  entire  earthly  happiness  of  any  class 
of  persons  was  measured  by  what  they  had  the  power 

143 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

of  enforcing;  how  all  who  made  any  resistance  to 
authorities  who  had  power  in  their  hands,  however 
dreadful  the  provocation,  had  not  only  the  law  of 
force  but  all  other  laws  and  all  the  notions  of  social 
obligations  against  them,  and  in  the  eyes  of  those 
whom  they  resisted  were  not  only  guilty  of  crime,  but 
of  the  worst  of  all  crimes,  deserving  the  most  cruel 
chastisement  which  human  beings  could  inflict." 

How  faithful  a  picture  this  is  of  the  past  is  obvious 
when  we  recall  that  those  men  who  spent  their  lives 
in  the  unrequited  service  of  the  government  were 
beaten  to  extort  from  them  the  money  made  by  their 
wives  and  children  to  pay  taxes  for  then,  as  now,  the 
poor  bear  an  undue  proportion  of  the  public  expen- 
diture. Unhappily  this  is  just  as  true  of  many  lands 
to-day  as  it  was  in  the  past,  and  it  was  true  of  Egypt 
about  forty  years  ago.  Under  Muhammad  Ali,  the 
founder  of  the  reigning  dynasty,  and  his  successors, 
tyranny  and  oppression  were  remorseless  and  relent- 
less. The  labouring  classes  were  done  to  death  in 
large  numbers,  and  the  taxes  were  collected  from 
those  who  had  nothing  to  pay  them  with  as  brutally 
and  as  mercilessly  as  in  ancient  Chaldea  and  Assyria. 
These  unfortunates  were  so  enfeebled  in  consequence 
from  lack  of  sufficient  food  that  they  had  neither  the 
strength  nor  the  moral  courage  to  work.  The  young 
men  were  dragged  off  to  service  in  the  army  and  were 

144 


MAN  AS  RULER 

nothing  more  than  chattels  of  the  government,  and 
misery  unspeakable  cast  its  shadow  over  that  fertile 
land,  that  had  once  been  the  granary  of  the  East. 

Every  country  under  the  sun  has  trafficked  in 
slaves,  if  not  of  aliens  then  of  classes,  and  every 
branch  of  human  activity  has  had  its  specific  counter- 
part of  slavery,  political,  intellectual,  theological, 
commercial  and  industrial.  Governments  held  the 
people  in  political  bondage;  the  Roman  Catholic 
hierarchy  enslaved  the  intellect ;  theology  enslaved  the 
conscience;  commerce  holds  the  free  exchange  of 
commodities  in  check,  and  industrialism  enslaves  the 
masses.  Look  where  we  may  over  the  past,  the  heavy 
hand  of  muscle  lies  everywhere,  as  the  result  of  the 
unrestrained  rule  of  the  "  natural  man."  Liberty, 
fraternity,  and  equality  which  was  the  unformulated 
but  fundamental  law  of  the  gens,  as  long  as  the 
influence  of  the  mother-rule  remained,  was  wholly 
unknown  and  inconceivable. 

As  each  country  is  passed  in  review,  the  most 
striking  feature  is  the  appalling  sameness  of  the 
story.  The  whole  of  history  could  be  collected  in  one 
small  volume,  nay  a  few  words  would  tell  the  tale, 
*  for  of  each  the  sum  total  is :  once  dominant,  then  sub- 
ject ;  and  of  the  conditions  that  led  to  it ;  war,  pillage, 
bloodshed,  <3ruelty  and  misgovernment  embrace  the 
whole.     The  causes  which  led  to  war  have  run  the 

10  145 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

gamut  of  almost  every  emotion,  from  fighting  for 
fighting's  sake  to  religious  differences.  But  the  en- 
during causes  in  primitive  times  were  sustenance,  for 
where  large  bodies  of  men  live  by  fishing,  hunting, 
and  the  grazing  of  cattle  and  flocks,  rather  than  by 
work,  extensive  areas  were  required,  and,  in  later 
times,  after  the  state  was  formed,  lust  of  territory  and 
the  hopes  of  the  spoils  of  war  by  military  leaders, 
who  always  exerted  great  influence  over  sovereigns. 

As  soon  as  a  nation  was  reputed  to  have  wealth  in 
any  form,  or  a  fertile  country,  it  became  at  once  an 
object  of  envy  to  its  less  favoured  and  less  prosperous 
neighbours.  Invasions  began  early  in  the  history  of 
the  human  family,  and  with  them  the  constant  inter- 
mixture of  races.  With  the  exception  of  the  Jews 
there  is  scarcely  a  pure-blooded  people.  Since  his- 
toric times  France  has  undergone  four  assimilations 
and  England  still  more,  while  Italy  was  the  fighting 
ground  of  Europe  for  nearly  two  thousand  years. 
Everywhere  might  was  right,  and  progress  was 
largely  a  matter  of  weapons  and  endurance.  All 
rule  was  despotic  and  society  was  in  two  divisions, 
the  rulers  and  the  ruled,  and  the  former  was  a  very 
small  minority. 

The  personal  ambitions  of  individual  men,  their 
struggles  for  power  and  place,  their  indifference  as  to 
methods,  their  cruelty  and  vanity  when  in  power,  and 

146 


MAN  AS  RULER 

the  struggles  of  those  who  adhered  to  them,  that  they 
in  turn  might  reap  personal  benefits,  fill  many  a 
bloody  page  of  history.  These  struggles  were  carried 
on  under  the  most  primitive  passions  and  the  means 
resorted  to  to  accomplish  ends  were  limited  only  by 
expediency.  Jealousy,  hatred,  malice  and  acquisitive- 
ness led  men  to  betray  one  another,  and  political  pre- 
ferment as  late  as  three  centuries  ago  even  in  the 
most  civilised  countries  was  fairly  sure  to  lead  to  the 
scaffold  or  the  block.  So  deficient  was  the  sentiment 
that  bound  families  and  relatives  together  that  the 
members  would  not  infrequently  accomplish  the  death 
of  one  another  if  the  way  to  advancement  was  barred. 

In  Rome  during  her  decadence,  wholesale  proscrip- 
tion was  employed  and  any  one  in  favour  with  the 
authorities  might  have  his  enemies'  names  on  the  list 
and  in  this  way  removed  from  his  path.  In  Venice 
the  Council  of  Ten,  and  in  England  the  Star  Chamber 
performed  much  the  same  service.  Each  of  these 
institutions  was  called  into  being  by  those  in  power 
that  they  might  do  away  with,  not  so  much  the 
enemies  of  the  government,  as  the  personal  enemies 
of  those  who  foi-med  the  government.  Into  the  six- 
teenth century,  murder,  assassination,  and  poisoning 
were  freely  resorted  to  under  the  thinnest  veils  of 
disguise  to  free  statesmen  from  their  opponents. 

If  an  estimate  were  made,  beginning  with  the 
147 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

ancient  Egyptian  empire  in  3000  B.C.,  and  embracing 
all  countries  clown  to  the  commencement  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  of  those  measures  that  were  initiated 
by  the  various  governments  for  the  purpose  of 
ameliorating  and  benefiting  the  conditions  of  the 
masses,  they  would  form  a  surprisingly  short  chapter 
in  a  universal  history.  Measures  that  had  any  such 
object  in  view  had,  in  general,  to  be  forced  by  revolu- 
tion, and  revolution  was  a  diiScult  matter  for  the 
ignorant,  helpless  and  unarmed.  Yet  it  was  by  the 
labours  of  these  down-trodden  masses,  who  were  de- 
prived of  that  which  was  justly  theirs,  that  the  priv- 
ileged few  held  their  wealth  and  power. 

Governments  are  supposed  to  exist  for  the  benefit 
of  the  governed,  but  this  is  a  mere  theory  and  has 
never  existed  in  fact  since  the  close  of  the  matri- 
archate.  This  it  is  that  distinguished  the  rule  of 
man  from  the  rule  of  woman,  and  history  gives  more 
than  one  example  of  this  truth.  No  single  industrial 
class  has  been  more  universally  and  uniformly  abused 
than  the  peasant,  from  the  fellahin  of  Egypt  down  to 
the  tenant  farmer  in  Ireland,  and  yet  the  prosperity 
of  a  nation  rests  on  the  farming  community. 
Agrarian  secession  after  secession  fills  the  pages  of 
Roman  history  for  centuries.  The  hardships  of  the 
tiller  of  the  soil,  who  was  reduced  to  eat  roots  to  sus- 
tain life,  played  no  insignificant  part  in  that  monu- 

148 


MAN  AS  RULER 

mental  blot  on  man's  rule,  the  French  revolution  of 
little  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago.  Border  raids, 
pillage  of  cattle,  and  destruction  of  crops  constitute 
the  history  of  England  versus  Scotland  for  many 
centuries,  and  the  abuse  of  the  Irish  tenant  farmer 
for  a  thousand  years  has  stamped  race  hatred  deep 
on  the  Celtic  mind. 

Neither  the  Greeks  nor  Romans  learnt  any  lesson 
from  the  fate  that  continual  fighting  led  to  in  the 
Asiatic  monarchies.  Clever,  quick  witted,  keen  and 
philosophical  as  the  Greeks  were,  their  reasoning  did 
not  extend  to  the  length  of  opening  their  eyes  to  the 
suicidal  effect  of  warfare,  and  the  national  independ- 
ence, in  consequence,  was  limited  to  the  short  period 
of  nine  hundred  years.  Each  city-state  was  divided 
against  its  neighbour,  and  each  fought  the  other  for 
supremacy.  The  land  was  successively  under  Spar- 
tan, Athenian.   Theban  and  Macedonian   domination. 

Underneath  Athenian  culture  and  art,  the  "  natural 
man  "  was  as  untamed  and  cruel  as  his  fighting 
ancestors,  and  outside  of  his  own  class  no  one  had 
any  regard  for  his  fellow  man,  and  little  enough 
within  it,  since  the  leader  of  to-day  had  to  drink  the 
fatal  cup  of  hemlock  to-morrow,  for  the  nobles  of 
each  city,  Athens,  Sparta,  Lesbos  and  the  others, 
fought  violently  among  themselves.  Those  cultivated 
Athenian   men    enjoyed   their   pleasures    while   their 

149 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

mothers  and  sisters,  wives  and  daughters  were  denied 
everything  in  life  except  work  and  existence.  In  the 
amphitheatres,  bathed  in  sunlight  and  air,  with  the 
sea  lapping  at  their  feet  and  the  soft  beauty  of 
southern  nature  all  around  them,  they  listened  to  the 
plays  of  Sophocles,  Euripides,  and  Aristophanes  with 
no  thought  of  the  weary,  monotonous  lives,  shut  in  in 
upper  rooms,  of  those  to  whom  they  owed  their  being ; 
but  when  they  were  in  trouble,  when  they  were  im- 
prisoned and  doomed  to  drink  the  fatal  cup,  then  they 
turned  to  those  women  for  support  and  comfort. 

In  Sparta  the  whole  business  of  life  was  war.  The 
children  were  devoted  to  it  by  the  state  and  exclu- 
sively trained  for  it.  No  Spartan  citizen  knew  any- 
thing about  or  would  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
practical  or  constructive  affairs  of  life,  for  everything 
except  war  was  scorned  as  unworthy,  so  its  sinews 
were  supplied  hy  slaves.  All  through  Greece  dis- 
honesty, treachery,  deceit,  and  lying  were  inculcated 
as  virtue  and  no  man  could  trust  his  friend.  Internal 
faction,  turmoil,  political  strife,  and  brutal  massacres 
are  the  tale  of  Grecian  history. 

After  the  battle  of  Platea,  the  Spartans  massacred 
in  cold  blood  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  prisoners. 
After  ^gospotami,  the  victorious  Lysander  cele- 
brated his  victory  by  putting  to  death  three  thousand 
prisoners,  and  the  Athenians  did  likewise  to  one  thou- 
sand of  the  ringleaders  of  the  Mitylene  revolt.    In  an 

150 


MAN  AS  RULER 

internal  contest  between  the  rich  and  the  poor  in  the 
city  of  the  Milesians,  the  latter  having  got  the  upper 
hand  gathered  the  children  of  the  rich  into  threshing 
floors  and  had  them  tramped  to  death  by  oxen.  When 
the  rich  regained  power,  they  retaliated  by  burning 
in  pitch  every  one  of  their  antagonists  whom  they 
could  catch,   together  with  their  children. 

Long  after  the  selling  of  the  men  of  captured  cities 
ceased,  the  women  continued  to  be  sold  either  into 
slavery  or  as  concubines.  In  historical  Greece  in  con- 
tradistinction to  Homeric  Greece,  old  age  was  despised 
and  cast  aside  by  the  younger  generation.  Such  was 
the  golden  age  when  stripped  of  its  glamour.  Such 
only  could  a  country  be  where  men  lived  their  lives 
wholly  apart  from  and  uninfluenced  by  women,  and 
it  is  a  reflection  on  all  men  ever  since,  that  they  have 
worshipped  a  cold,  barren  intellect  that  added  noth- 
ing to  the  sum  of  human  happiness. 

Rome,  the  imperial  oppressor,  Avaded  to  conquest 
through  rivers  of  blood,  and  her  rule  was  untempered 
tyranny.  The  wars  of  the  classes  were  long  and 
bitter,  the  Patricians  oppressing  the  Burgesses  and 
denying  them  political  and  social  rights.  Every  inch 
the  latter  gained  was  struggled  hard  for,  and  could 
only  be  held  b}^  ceaseless  vigilance,  until  at  length 
their  increased  wealth,  and  consequently  their  power, 
forced  recognition. 

The  story  of  Rome  is  an  almost  unbroken  chapter 
161 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

of  conquest  for  twelve  hundred  years.  The  Roman 
legions  had  almost  become  a  synonym  for  military 
success  and,  like  Israel  of  old,  they  struck  terror  into 
the  hearts  of  all  their  neighbours.  As  in  Greece,  but 
one  thing  was  worthy  of  man's  attention,  the  pro- 
fession of  arms.  The  guiding  spirit  was  the  lust  of 
dominion,  and  it  was  unchecked  by  any  sentiment  of 
regard  for  others.  Sentiment  had  not  been  born  in 
men's  hearts  and  pugnacity  and  selfishness  ruled 
unrestrained  and  the  onl}^  law  was  force.  After  a 
period  of  almost  unchecked  success  and  having  con- 
quered a  goodly  part  of  the  known  world,  Rome  suc- 
cumbed, after  an  existence  of  only  twelve  hundred 
years,  to  civil  misrule,  and  turning,  she  rent  herself 
asunder. 

That  men  should  have  fought  so  persistently  during 
the  time  of  the  early  monarchies  is  not  perhaps  such 
a  matter  for  surprise,  but  that  the  teachings  of  the 
"  Man  of  Peace  "  should  have  had  so  little  effect  on 
the  conduct  of  those  nations  that  adopted  Christianity 
is  a  commentary  on  the  unfitness  of  man  to  have  the 
lives  of  others  under  his  sole  control,  a  being  who  had 
absolutely  no  control  over  himself,  and  who  resisted 
the  idea  of  control  when  applied  to  himself.  Histo- 
rians talk  of  the  softening  influence  of  Christianity  in 
one  sentence,  and  in  the  next  they  describe  events  that 
totally  belie  it. 

163 


MAN  AS  RULER 

The  fact  is  that  life  went  on  much  the  same  as 
before,  for  Teuton  and  Celt,  Goth  and  Gaul  fought 
like  demons  and  when  not  tyrannising  over  their 
neighbours  they  were  carrying  on  internecine  conflict. 
The  whole  of  Europe  was  engaged  in  a  deadly  strug- 
gle for  eighteen  centuries,  nation  fighting  against 
nation,  and  nation  fighting  against  itself.  In  fact  a 
nation  was  only  united  when  it  was  fighting  with  its 
neighbours  and  just  as  soon  as  it  was  free  internal 
struggle  began. 

Most  of  the  modern  nations  have  had  cruel  civil 
wars.  England,  France  and  the  young  republic  of 
the  United  States  have  been  racked  and  torn.  Russia 
is  in  the  throes  of  unarmed  internecine  struggle, 
China  is  in  battle  array  against  herself,  Portugal  is 
facing  civil  war,  Spain  is  hanging  in  the  balance  and 
Cuba  and  Mexico  are  seething,  while  the  South  Amer- 
ican republics  are  ever  on  the  tapis.  In  all  these  civil 
strifes  father  and  son,  uterine  brother  against  uterine 
brother  face  one  another  in  mortal  combat,  and  it 
matters  not  what  the  form  of  the  government  is,  the 
fact  remains  the  same  because  there  is  no  human  bond 
strong  enough  to  counteract  the  biological  necessity 
to  fight  and  to  variableness.  j\Ien  with  their  native 
tendency  to  sophistry  call  it  principle  but  its  true 
name  is  biology.  It  is  their  pugnacious  nature,  their 
selfishness,  their  lust  for  power  and  wealth  that  is 

153 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

unearned,  their  instinctive  cruelty  and  inhumanity, 
which  created  the  conditions  that  "  principle  "  is 
speciously  used  to  cover. 

It  is  easy  to  be  misled  as  to  the  real  conditions  of 
life  during  the  Middle  Ages,  when  chivalry  was  in 
power  and  belted  knight  and  troubadour  and  tourna- 
ment cast  a  false  glamour  over  the  sordidness  and 
misery  of  the  masses,  when  spiritual  lords  and  lords 
temporal  ground  out  the  lives  of  the  poor.  The  high 
placed  ecclesiastics  of  the  Christian  church  were  ter- 
ritoral  magnates,  ruling  those  under  them  as  the 
neighbouring  lay  magnates  did.  But  underneath  all 
this  glitter  the  iron  was  driven  into  the  souls  of  the 
people,  and  injustice  and  hunger  and  violence  were 
everywhere,  and  the  only  bond  that  linked  society 
was  physical  force. 

In  the  domain  of  religion  the  same  struggle  was 
carried  on  in  the  same  way.  Pagans  cast  Christians 
into  the  arena  to  be  torn  in  pieces  and  when,  in  turn, 
the  established  branch  of  the  Catholic  church  found 
itself  imperilled  after  several  centuries  of  adoration 
of  the  "  Man  of  Peace,"  the  "  law  of  battle  "  still 
prevailed  and  rendered  the  message  of  the  Gospel  of 
no  effect,  and  for  two  and  a  half  centuries  Europe  was 
drenched  with  the  blood  of  victims.  Who  shall  tell 
of  the  horrors  of  the  Inquisition,  when  every  intru- 
ment  of  torture  that  fiendish  ingenuity  could  conceive 

154 


MAN  AS  RULER 

of  was  brought  into  requisition  and  high  dignitaries 
of  the  church  revelled  in  the  suffering  of  innocents, 
and  the  best  blood  of  the  country  was  driven  forth 
to  seek  shelter  in  the  wilds  of  nature.  It  is  said  that 
James  II  of  England  took  infinite  delight  in  witness- 
ing the  exquisite  sufferings  of  the  victim  of  the  steel 
boot,  while  his  judge,  Jeffries,  sentenced  women  to  be 
burnt  to  death  for  giving  food  and  shelter  to  rebels. 

But  here  again  the  oppressed  of  to-day  was  the 
oppressor  of  to-moiTow.  Triumphant  Protestantism 
impaled  Catholicism  and  then,  like  Rome  of  old,  it 
turned  and  rent  itself,  Episcopalian  and  Presbyterian 
"  fighting  like  devils  for  conciliation,  and  hating  one 
another  for  the  love  of  God."  Gentile  hated  Jew  and, 
as  the  latter  was  a  man  without  a  country,  with 
nothing  to  stand  between  him  and  the  lust  of  wealth 
of  the  Gentile,  he  was  hunted  like  a  fox  into  his  hole 
that  he  might  be  stripped  of  his  possessions,  and  the 
Jew  of  to-day  bears  the  stamp,  in  many  of  his  quali- 
ties, that  the  Gentile  imprinted  on  him  during  centu- 
ries of  oppression.  So  late  did  persecution  for 
religion's  sake  last,  that  the  echoes  of  the  Orange  and 
the  Green  have  only  died  away. 

Until  within  the  last  twenty-five  years  the  punish- 
ments inflicted  on  criminals  were  cruel  beyond  words. 
The  one  desire  that  animated  the  ruling  classes  was 
to  see  how  fiendish  the  tortures  inflicted  could  be  made. 

155 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

The  following  sentence  pronounced  in  the  courts  of 
Dublin  in  the  nineteenth  century,  in  cases  of  high 
treason,  will  give  some  idea  of  the  unmitigated  brutal- 
ity with  which  the  earth  was  governed : 

"It  is  ordered  by  the  court  that  they,  and  each  of 
them,  be  taken  from  the  bar  of  the  court  where  they 
now  stand,  to  the  place  from  whence  they  came — the 
gaol;  that  their  irons  be  stricken  off,  that  they  be 
thence  carried  to  the  common  place  of  execution,  the 
gallows;  and  that  they  and  each  of  them  be  hanged 
by  the  neck,  but  not  until  they  are  dead,  for  whilst 
they  are  yet  alive,  they  are  to  be  taken  down,  their 
entrails  are  to  be  taken  out  of  their  body,  and  whilst 
they  are  yet  alive,  they  are  to  be  burnt  before  their 
faces;  their  heads  are  then  to  be  respectively  cut  off; 
and  their  bodies  to  be  respectively  divided  into  four 
quarters."  (Quoted  from  Prof,  Mahaffy's  Social  Life 
of  Greece.) 

This  sentence  was  not  literally  carried  out  on  this 
occasion  but  such  sentences  and  worse  sentences  in 
which  all  this  was  preceded  by  the  rack  and  other 
torture  were  carried  out  till  as  late  as  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  These  sentences  were  not  only 
inflicted  by  command  of  the  most  refined  and  culti- 
vated men  of  the  day,  but  they  were  not  infrequently 
witnessed  by  them  without  flinching.  In  the  United 
States  at  late  as  1824  paupers  were  sold  to  the  highest 

156 


MAN  AS  RULER 

bidder,  criminals  were  dragged  out  into  open  day  and 
flogged,  branded  on  head  or  cheek  with  letters,  or 
their  ears  cut  off,  while  from  ten  to  nineteen  crimes 
were  punished  with  death.  Soul-sickening  punish- 
ments are  far  from  being  a  thing  of  the  past.  In 
China,  Africa,  everywhere  in  fact,  where  woman  is 
degraded  and  without  influence,  life  is  unspeakably 
cruel. 

The  price  mankind  has  paid  in  misery  and  suffering 
for  even  such  a  measure  of  civilisation  as  the  present, 
is  beyond  computation.  Savagery  even  now  is  far 
from  eliminated.  There  is  scarcely  a  day  in  the  year 
that  our  newspapers,  the  current  histories,  do  not 
record  acts  of  brutality  and  injustice  for  a  little  gain 
or  personal  indulgence  at  the  expense  of  others,  and 
this  is  not  confined  to  classes,  for  the  burglar  among 
the  lower  orders  is  the  embezzler  among  the  higher. 

The  old  biological  Adam  of  pugnacity  and  selfish- 
ness buried  its  roots  deep  in  man's  heart,  and  history 
shows  that  neither  education  nor  intellect  is  suffi- 
cient to  dislodge  it,  and  that  only  as  man  rises  to 
the  higher  conception  of  the  oneness  of  the  human 
family,  of  the  equal  rights  of  all  men  to  the  fruits 
of  the  earth  and  of  his  labour,  Avill  he  attain  the 
highest  satisfaction  and  happiness  that  life  can  afford. 

So  far  the  struggle  for  life  has  been  purely  egoistic 
with  no  ulterior  object  on  the  part  of  statesmen  be- 

157 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

yond  the  interests  of  their  country,  always  subject  to 
their  own  personal  interests  and  that  of  the  class  to 
which  they  belonged,  their  efforts  being  chiefly  di- 
rected to  obtaining  everything  they  could  from  sister 
nations  and  granting  nothing  that  they  could  possibly 
avoid.  In  countries  composed  of  different  races  such 
as  Austria-Hungary  and  the  British  Islands,  a  con- 
stant struggle  goes  on  between  the  selfish  interests  of 
the  two  branches.  Even  the  oneness  of  the  political 
union  and  the  identity  of  their  ends  as  a  nation  are 
not  sufficient  to  overcome  racial  antagonism,  and  dis- 
crimination has  to  be  vigilantly  guarded  against, 
otherwise  the  governing  race  is  sure  to  absorb  the 
energy  and  ability  of  the  other.  Even  in  the  same 
land,  where  racial  distinctions  do  not  exist,  egoism 
raises  its  artificial  classifications,  and  the  manufactur- 
ing section  discriminates  through  the  tariff  against 
the  non-manufacturing  districts. 

From  this  cursory  review  of  history  and  of  man's 
methods  of  ruling,  it  is  evident  that  the  difference 
between  early  Greece  and  Rome  and  the  mediaeval 
European  period  is  much  less  than  at  first  sight 
appears  and  is  more  apparent  than  real.  The  term 
civilisation  is  an  arbitrary,  not  an  exact,  distinction. 
Dating  from  the  promulgation  of  Christian  doctrine, 
it  should  have  been  exact  but  it  has  been  in  reality 
only  a  transition  period  and  at  best  was  nothing  more 

158 


MAN  AS  RULER 

than  semi-barbarons,  for  Christianity  was  dragged 
down  till  it  became  a  cloak  and  shield  under  which 
indulgence  and  license  were  found  for  selfishness  and 
inhumanity. 

In  England  and  other  European  countries  the  feel- 
ing is  only  passing  away  that  the  profession  of  arms 
or  the  church  were  the  only  callings  worthy  of  a  gen- 
tleman. So  our  savage  ancestors  felt  when  men  only 
killed,  hunted,  speared  fish  and  sat  down,  and  the 
cultivation  of  the  arts  of  peace  was  left  for  despised 
woman.  In  every  land  to-day  the  army  or  naval 
officer  has  social  prestige,  so  closely  are  we  linked  to 
savagery.  Civilisation  properly  so-called  had  its 
birth  with  the  accession  of  the  late  Queen  Victoria  and 
dates,  therefore,  from  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  This  will  be  more  apparent  when  we  glance 
at  the  laws  of  the  foremost  countries. 

How  crude  is  the  present  state  is  very  apparent 
when  we  look  at  the  conduct  of  the  so-called  superior 
races  in  their  dealings  with  inferior  peoples.  The 
Dutch  in  Java  treat  and  regard  and  speak  of  the 
natives  as  dogs.  After  having  despoiled  them  of  their 
territory  they  are  reduced  to  the  condition  of  slaves 
who  must  spend  their  energies  in  the  service  of  their 
despoilers.  No  attempt  is  made  to  educate  or  raise 
them  but  on  the  contrary  every  effort  is  directed  to 
keeping  them  in  a  state  of  degradation.        7 

159  ,  I. 


/ 


atl^^      2>M_-/cA-  . 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

The  attitude  of  America  to  the  negro  leaves  much  to 
be  desired,  in  fact,  wherever  a  superior  race  comes 
in  contact  with  an  inferior,  it  is  not  so  much  the  in- 
feriority of  the  inferior,  as  the  low  degree  of  the 
superiority  of  the  superior,  that  challenges  attention. 
This  is  not  surprising  when  the  method  of  settling 
disputes  which  were  supposed  to  reflect  on  honour  was 
by  duelling,  which  has  so  recently  passed  away  that 
its  echo  is  still  to  be  heard.  For  disagreements,  as 
often  silly  and  childish  as  otherwise,  cultured,  high- 
bred men — duelling  was  the  gentlemen's  prerogative, 
for  among  the  labourer  it  would  have  been  called 
murder — summoned  one  another  to  deadly  single 
combat  with  murderous  weapons.  So  common  was 
this  habit,  that  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  many  of 
the  students  in  German  universities  bore  as  frightful 
scars  on  their  faces  as  captured  women  in  Australia. 
The  logic  and  the  custom  were  worthy  of  one  another, 
but  were  unworthy  of  a  civilisation  based  on 
Christianity. 

It  cannot  be  held  as  is  so  often  done,  that  war 
per  se  was  a  necessity  for  the  advancement  of  civili- 
sation, for  history  proves,  over  and  over  again,  that 
the  arts  of  peace  languished  during  times  of  pro- 
tracted warfare.  Man  has  never  been  able  to  serve 
two  masters.  From  the  time  of  Chaucer  till  that  of 
Elizabeth  the  voice  of  culture  was  silent  in  England. 

160 


MAN  AS  RULER 

The  renaissance  which  had  awakened  Italy  to  a  new 
intellectual  existence  in  the  thirteenth  century  did 
not  reach  England  for  two  hundred  years.  Nor 
can  it  by  any  possibility  be  held  that  the  country  made 
any  substantial  gain  in  other  directions  during  those 
centuries  of  uninterruped  warfare.  It  left  her  bowed 
down  under  a  burden  of  debt,  her  treasury  exhausted, 
her  trade  destroyed,  her  land  untilled,  and  her  people 
disheartened  and  sunken  in  misery  and  want. 

Nevertheless,  the  long  period  of  warfare  through 
which  the  earth  has  passed,  for  it  can  almost  with  cer- 
tainty be  reckoned  back  for  at  least  five  thousand 
years,  must  of  necessity  have  had  some  purpose  in 
the  economy  of  an  over-riding  power.  The  "  law  of 
battle  "  was  not  an  accident  but  a  necessity  for  the 
civilising  and  domesticating  of  man  himself.  Only 
by  its  severe  discipline  maintained  over  hundreds  of 
succeeding  generations  of  men  could  he  be  weaned 
from  his  wild,  free,  unbridled  existence  of  roaming 
the  forests  at  will  and  of  appropriating  everything 
to  himself  regardless  of  others,  to  an  existence  of 
monotonous  and  unceasing  labour.  His  fighting 
methods  were  a  nec^essary  step  for  his  evolution  on  the 
practical  plane,  and  they  were  also  an  equally  neces- 
sary step  for  his  evolution  on  the  moral  plane,  in 
order  that  all  things  might  work  together  for  the  good 
of  the  human  family. 

11  161 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

The  hiatus  from  man  as  a  kingdom  builder — an 
absolute  ruler  over  the  earthly  destinies  of  millions 
of  human  beings,  a  master  spirit  who  dominates  over 
all  the  creatures  of  the  animal  world,  a  mental  giant 
who  chains  the  elements  of  wind,  sea,  and  fire,  and 
makes  them  subservient  to  his  needs,  a  god,  in  his  own 
conceits,  to  be  worshipped  and  served  by  woman — to 
man  a  social  coward,  standing  in  awe  and  trembling 
before  the  being  he  affects  to  despise,  is  a  chasm  of 
such  stupendous  depth  that  the  passage  makes  one 
dizzy,  to  be  followed  afterwards  by  a  doubt  of  its 
reality  and  the  belief  that  it  must  be  an  illusion  of  the 
senses.  Indeed  so  violent  is  the  shock  that  nothing 
short  of  evidence  written  and  sworn  to  over  his  own 
seal  and  signature  can  bring  conviction.  Happily  for 
the  title  of  this  chapter  there  are  volumes  of  just  such 
testimony  of  undoubted  authenticity,  some  of  it  hoary 
with  age,  and  some  still  pulsing  with  the  hot  blood 
of  vain  and  ardent  youth. 

The  extraordinary  feature  about  it  is  that  this  self- 
incriminating  documentary  evidence  has  always  been 
regarded  as  a  token  of  manly  strength,  excellence, 
and  superiority.     It  had  long  been  thought  over  by 

162 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

the  leading  intelligences  of  each  country,  then  adopted 
and  codified  as  the  laws  by  which  the  land  was  gov- 
erned. They,  therefore,  represent  the  views  of  the 
highest  spirits  of  the  age  in  which  they  were  adopted 
and  are  the  mirror  which  reflects  the  position  of 
woman.  These  laws  defined  the  relations  of  the  sexes, 
so  far  as  laws  could  take  cognisance  of  them,  award- 
ing to  man  his  legal  rights  and  to  woman  her  legal 
limitations.  As  a  citizen  she  was  a  negligible  quan- 
tity; law,  so  far  as  she  was  concerned,  occupied  itself 
chiefly  with  her  obligations  to  her  husband  and  almost 
invariably  to  his  advantage. 

As  woman  is  the  weaker  and  inferior  being, -accord- 
ing to  man's  estimate,  the  question  arises  as  to  the 
philosophy  of  these  oftentimes  extraordinary  meas- 
ures of  protection  secured  for  him  against  her.  The 
natural  impulse  is  to  protect  the  weak,  dependent, 
and  defenceless  against  the  strong  and  independent, 
or,  in  lack  of  positive  protection  at  the  least,  not  to 
discriminate  against  the  weak  in  favour  of  the  strong. 
Who  would  have  dreamt  of  protecting  a  Goliath  by 
sending  with  him  as  a  bodyguard  a  slender  girl  of 
eighteen  summers,  yet  this  is  precisely  what  the  laws  of 
all  countries  have  done  for  ages,  even  more  than  this, 
for  they  have  in  many  cases  meted  out  a  severer  pun- 
ishment for  the  woman  than  for  the  man  for  the  same 
offence  and  have  added  insult  to  injury  by  alluding 

163 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

to  her  in  terms  of  the  most  unmeasured  contempt  and 
scorn.  There  was  no  direction  in  which  man's  inter- 
ests came  in  contact  with  woman's  that  he  was  not 
scrupulously  protected  against  her,  and  to  the  present 
moment  every  country  fights  against  according  to  her 
privileges  in  any  way  commensurate  with  his  though 
he  would  suffer  no  loss  thereby  except  prestige. 

This  strange  phenomenon  of  men,  with  one  accord, 
all  over  the  globe,  regardless  of  education,  intellect, 
or  social  advancement,  holding  their  mothers  and 
sisters,  wives  and  daughters  in  thrall  must  be  capable 
of  explanation.  By  the  very  nature  of  things  pro- 
tection is  needed  only  against  those  things  which 
there  is  reason  to  fear,  and  only  those  things  can  harm 
us  which  are  in  some  respects  superior  to  ourselves. 
Man  was  not  afraid  of  woman 's  doing  him  any  bodily 
injury,  nor  was  he  afraid  of  her  competition  with  him 
in  intellectual  fields,  for  he  declared  her  to  be  "  funda- 
mentally inferior,"  and  assured  himself  that  her 
brain  showed  evidence  of  arrested  development.  "What 
then  did  he  fear?  The  things  that  we  know  best  are 
those  that  we  feel.  Some  of  the  most  vital  truths  can- 
not be  demonstrated,  no  more  can  they  be  doubted, 
they  are  above  all  argument,  all  reason,  all  logic,  they 
come  from  the  eternal,  they  are  revelation,  they  are 
immutable,  they  are  God.  Subconsciously,  uncon- 
sciously,  but  irresistibly  man  recognised  in  woman 

164 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

a  potential  power  and  this  vagne,  incoherent,  shadowy 
dread,  which  like  his  shadow  he  could  never  get  rid 
of,  found  expression,  in  spite  of  himself,  in  his  self- 
proteetive  legislation.  It  is  his  own  confession  made 
anew  all  down  the  streams  of  time,  of  his  own  innate 
inferiority  and  of  his  selfishness,  that  selfishness, 
which,  as  Mr.  Darwin  has  said,  was  unfortunately 
biological. 

It  is  a  well-recognised  psychological  fact  that  gen- 
uine merit  is  modest,  never  self-assertive,  that  strength 
is  silent  and  never  announces  or  parades  itself,  that 
greatness  never  needs  to  bolster  itself  by  holding  up 
to  ridicule,  scorn,  or  contempt  that  which  it  regards 
beneath  it,  that  superiority  is  self-reliant  and  does 
not  require  artificial  supports.  What  shall  we  say 
then  of  man,  who  in  every  clime  and  every  age  has 
put  himself  on  record,  through  every  available  chan- 
nel, as  a  superior  being,  and  has  called  the  Almighty 
to  witness  for  he  says  he  was  made  in  "  His  image," 
yet  has  deemed  it  necessary  to  protect  that  image  of 
the  Almighty  by  all  the  high  wall  fences,  that  the 
subtlety  of  the  legal  mind  could  conceive  against  the 
poor,  humble,  weak  creature  made  from  the  feeblest 
bone  in  his  body — a  rib?  Could  any  admission  of 
inherent  weakness,  of  biological  cowardice  and  infe- 
riority be  more  loudly,  more  grotesquely  proclaimed 
than  this?     It  has  taken  all  the  machinery  of  legisla- 

165 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

tion  and  religion  to  hide  the  skeleton  in  his  closet. 
Surely  ' '  the  guilty  fleeth  when  no  man  pursueth. ' ' 

But  if  man  was  deficient  in  the  qualities  he  arro- 
gated to  himself,  he  was  amply  supplied  with  the 
cunning  and  craft  that  simulated  them,  and  he 
resorted  to  all  the  means  that  would  elevate  himself 
and  debase  woman,  not  only  in  his  eyes  but  in  her 
own,  the  latter  being  infinitely  the  more  effective 
method  of  enabling  him  to  hold  his  precarious  ground, 
for  it  furnished  him  with  an  argument  for  his  treat- 
ment of  her,  that  he  could  not  have  had  without  her 
co-operation.  Wife  capture  was  the  first  step  in  her 
degradation  and  it  is  easy  to  see  how,  when  this  be- 
came general,  as  it  did  all  over  the  earth,  the 
belief  in  her  inferiority  became  finally  inherited  and 
was  handed  on  from  father  to  son  and  from  mother 
to  daughter.  Just  as  soon  as  her  subjection  was  com- 
plete there  must  inevitably  have  sprung  up  the  belief 
that  it  was  the  natural  order  of  the  univeree,  and  that 
woman  was  specially  made  for  the  convenience  of 
man.  All  knowledge  of  any  previous  state  was  lost. 
With  the  assumption  by  man  of  the  control  of  affairs, 
physical  force  became  the  universal  and  sole  standard 
of  excellence  and  woman  was  undone.  All  this  had 
taken  place  before  man  was  advanced  enough  to 
build  up  legal  codes  and  religious  sj^stems  but  when 
he  was,  nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  what  had 

166 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

been  the  physical  fact  of  wife  capture,  should  later 
become  a  legal  and  religious  fact.  Thus  we  find  that 
every  code  and  every  creed,  pagan  and  Christian  alike, 
have  placed  her  completely  in  the  hands  of  man,  and 
she  has  had  to  fight  her  own  way  up  as  best  she 
could  against  the  combined  power  of  an  inherited 
belief  and  all  the  social,  religious,  and  political  usages 
and  creeds  of  all  time.  In  spite  of  the  strength  of 
these  organised  forces,  and  they  are  no  mean  oppo- 
nents, woman 's  progress  would  be  infinitelj^  more  rapid 
if  it  were  not  for  her  own  sex,  but  they  are  so 
imbued  with  the  belief  in  their  own  inferiority  and 
the  all-power  of  man,  they  have  so  completely  accepted 
his  standard  of  femininity,  that  it  is  only  a  few  women 
of  independent  thought,  and  who  are  courageous 
enough  to  disregard  the  sneers  and  jeers  of  the  masses 
and  the  press,  who  have  endeavoured  to  stem  the  cur- 
rent, not  merely  for  the  uplifting  of  their  own  sex 
but  of  humanity,  and  to  these  chosen  souls  is  due  the 
measure  of  freedom  that  women  enjoy  in  western 
lands. 

Among  the  oldest  codes  of  jurisprudence  and  re- 
ligion is  that  of  Manu  of  India,  which  dates  from 
about  200  B.C.  Like  all  old  systems  it  is  a  jumble  of 
civil  and  religious  laws  and  it  seeks  to  control  every 
conceivable  action  and  happening  in  the  life  of  the 
individual.      It    is    extraordinary    that    millions    of 

167 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

human  beings  are  fettered  and  chained  hand  and  foot 
by  so  archaic  a  system  and  one  which  does  not  seem 
to  have  undergone  any  change  since  it  was  promul- 
gated. It  is  full  of  the  grossest  superstitions  and 
it  holds  woman  in  the  most  slavish  subjection  of  man. 
"  By  a  girl,  a  young  woman,  or  even  by  an  aged  one 
nothing  must  be  done  independently  even  in  her  own 
house.  In  childhood  a  female  must  be  subject  to  her 
father,  in  youth  to  her  husband,  as  a  widow  to  her 
sons;  a  woman  must  never  be  independent.  Let  hus- 
bands consider  this  as  the  supreme  law  ordained  for 
all  classes;  and  let  them,  how  weak  soever,  diligently 
keep  their  wives  under  lawful  restrictions.  Let  them 
keep  them  employed  in  female  duty,  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  daily  food  and  the  superintendence  of 
household  utensils."  A  husband  is  expressly  allowed 
to  beat  his  wife  Avith  a  ''  rope  of  split  bamboo."  The 
object  of  worship  for  a  woman  is  her  husband,  and 
she  is  commanded  under  penalty  though  he  is  "  desti- 
tute of  virtue,  or  seeking  pleasure,  or  enamoured  of 
another,  or  devoid  of  good  qualities,  yet  a  husband 
must  be  constantly  worshipped  as  a  god  by  a  faith- 
ful wife." 

So  continually  is  the  reverence  and  duty  of  a 
wife  towards  her  husband  harped  on  that  to  wait  upon 
him,  cook  for  him,  serve,  fan,  and  worship  him  is  the 
sole    aim    and    object    of   her   existence.      She    must 

168 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

address  him  as  "  lord  "  and  if  asked  his  name  by  a 
stranger  she  puts  her  hand  over  her  mouth  lest  she 
might  dishonour  him  by  speaking  of  him.  If  he  is  dead 
she  is  commanded  never  to  let  the  name  of  any  other 
man  cross  her  lips.  Her  only  chance  for  any  peace 
in  this  life  or  hope  of  the  hereafter  is  defined  in  terms 
of  man  for  religious  exercises  are  forbidden  her,  "  no 
sacrifice,  no  vow,  no  fast  must  be  performed  by  wives 
apart  from  their  husbands ;  if  the  wife  obeys  her 
husband  she  will  for  that  reason  alone  be  exalted  in 
heaven ;  let  her  emaciate  her  body  by  living  on  pure 
flowers,  roots,  and  fruits."  There  is  little  hope  for 
her  if  she  is  not  the  mother  of  a  son  or  sons  as  that 
is  the  only  excuse  for  her  being,  for  "  through  a  son 
a  father  conquers  the  world,  through  a  son's  son  he 
wins  immortality  while  through  a  son's  grandson  he 
attains  the  world  of  the  sun." 

It  is  not  enough,  however,  that  man  should  absorb 
woman  body  and  soul,  make  use  of  her  for  all  his 
needs  on  earth  and  through  her  win  eternal  bliss,  but 
he  must  also  use  every  endeavour  to  debase  her  while 
doing  it.  The  Creator  is  represented  as  having  made 
her  indolent,  "  a  lover  of  her  bed,  of  ornament,  im- 
pure desires  and  appetites,  wrath,  weak  flexibility, 
desire  of  mischief,  dishonesty,  malice,  and  bad  con- 
duct, therefore,  for  them  no  sacramental  rite  is  per- 
formed with  sacred  tests,  for  women  have  no  business 

169 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

with  tests  of  the  Veda,  but  many  sacred  tests  are  sung 
to  make  the  true  disposition  of  woman  fully  known." 
But  now  comes  the  crowning  charge  of  perfidious 
cowardice,  and  it  shows  to  what  depths  of  duplicity 
weakness  has  led  man  when  he  charges  woman  with 
his  cardinal  vice.  The  code  says,  "  It  is  the  nature  of 
women  to  seduce  men,  for  that  reason  the  wise  are 
never  unguarded  in  the  company  of  women.  For 
women  are  able  to  lead  astray  not  only  a  fool  but  even 
a  learned  man,  and  to  make  him  a  slave  to  desire  and 
anger.  Through  their  passion  for  men,  through  their 
mutable  temper,  through  their  natural  heartlessness 
they  become  disloyal  however  carefully  they  are 
guarded.  Knowing  their  dispositions  which  the  Lord 
of  creatures  laid  in  them  at  the  creation,  man  should 
strenuously  exert  himself  to  guard  them."  They  are 
denied  spirituous  liquors  and  further  it  was  enacted 
that,  ' '  neither  by  sale  nor  by  repudiation  is  a  woman 
free  from  her  husband." 

From  such  a  religio-civil  code  which  excludes 
women  from  all  the  harmless  pleasures  of  life,  denies 
them  all  freedom  of  action  and  movement,  denies  them 
religious  rites,  for  Buddhism  and  Mahommedanism 
practically  denies  them  a  soul,  upwards  of  300,000,000 
(including  China  and  the  Mahommedan  world)  are 
living  to-day  lives  less  desirable  than  beasts.  Nor 
does  this  exclusion  and  seclusion  tend  to  keep  their 

170 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

minds  pure,  for  one  who  knows  the  veiled  women  of 
India  well  says  that  their  thoughts  and  conversation 
are  given  over  to  obscene  matter.  It  could  not  be 
otherwise,  the  mind  was  made  to  work  and  if  it  is  not 
supplied  with  fit  material  it  dwells  on  such  as  it  has. 
The  false  relation  of  the  sexes  must  ever  be  fruitful 
of  evil.  Until  recently  few  of  these  children-wives 
could  read  a  word.  They  had  nothing  to  interest 
them  but  a  few  bits  of  tawdry  finery,  they  were  subject 
to  abuse  from  their  mothers-in-law  with  whom  they 
lived,  and  their  poor  lives  were  wretched  beyond 
words.  Education,  however,  is  proceeding  apace  and 
India's  hope,  like  that  of  all  other  lands,  lies  in  her 
M^omen,  for  the  men  brought  it  to  ruin  and  subjection- 
Even  Manu's  stupid  Code  recognised  this  for  it  says, 
"  Where  females  are  honoured  there  the  deities  are 
pleased;  but  where  they  are  dishonoured  there  all 
religious  acts  become  fruitless.  Wliere  female  rela- 
tions are  made  miserable,  the  family  of  him  who  makes 
them  so  very  soon  wholly  perishes,  but  where  they  are 
not  unhappy  the  family  always  increases."  Further 
it  recognises  their  potential  power  for  it  adds  that 
"  on  whatever  houses  the  women  of  the  family  not 
being  duly  honoured  is  pronounced  an  imprecation, 
those  houses  with  all  that  belong  to  them  utterly 
perish  as  if  destroyed  by  a  sacrifice  for  the  death  of 
an  enemy."     It  requires  the  cunning  of  man's  mind 

171 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

to  explain  anything  so  contradictory  as  these  state- 
ments in  Manu's  Code,  it  is  such  as  this,  doubtless, 
that  has  given  rise  to  the  oft-repeated  remark  of  the 
deep  subtlety  of  the  Oriental  character.  This  single 
acknowledgement,  however,  of  the  consequences  which 
invariably  result  both  to  individual  families  and  to 
nations  where  woman  is  despised  had  no  effect  as 
against  the  abuse  which  the  Code  so  freely  indulged 
in,  and  the  new  creeds  which  followed  did  not  lighten 
the  burden  for  woman. 

Among  the  Babylonians,  Persians,  Assyrians,  and 
Hebrews  her  position  was  little  better  than  that  of  a 
domestic  animal  and  she  was  valued  for  her  working 
capacity.  When  married  the  heaviest  work  devolved 
on  her  and  she  was  considered  incompetent  to  take 
part  in  religious  ceremonies.  In  these  lands  as  in 
India  the  men  were  polygamous.  The  Semitic  con- 
ception of  marriage  was  that  of  an  institution  de- 
signed to  perpetuate  the  husband's  name  and  estate. 
The  women  were  bought  and  sold  and  subject  to  bodily 
abuse.  That  they,  too,  regarded  them  as  the  source 
of  voluptuousness  would  appear  from  the  writings  of 
Solomon  but  wherever  polygamy  is  the  rule  this 
charge  is  sure  to  follow  for  ever  since  Adam  made  his 
cowardly  apology  to  the  Almighty:  "  The  woman 
whom  Thou  gavest  to  be  with  me  she  gave  me  of  the 
tree  and  I  did  eat,"  has  man  laid  his  moral  short- 

172 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

comings  on  woman — a  weakness  which  proclaims  it- 
self for  whosoever  "  excuses  himself  accuses  himself," 

The  Egyptians  at  the  period  under  consideration 
were  in  advance  of  the  neighbouring  nations  or  rather 
had  not  caught  up  to  them,  for  paradoxical  as  it  may 
sound,  in  this  respect,  to  be  in  advance  was  really 
to  be  behind.  Egyptians'  wives  under  the  early 
Pharaohs  were  the  equals  and  companions  of  their 
husbands.  The  existence  of  such  liberty  is  sufficient 
evidence  that  they  were  either  living  under  the  matri- 
archate  or  in  its  full  refulgent  afterglow,  for  such  a 
condition  was  not  possible  in  any  country  where  the 
reins  of  power  had  long  been  in  the  hands  of  man. 
But  the  land  of  the  Nile  soon  caught  the  prevailing 
tone  of  the  surrounding  neighbours  and  her  women 
for  centuries  have  shared  the  fate  of  their  Indian  and 
Chinese  sisters. 

The  condition  of  women  in  Greece  and  Rome  has 
already  been  dealt  with  at  some  length  and  the  same 
characteristics  were  observed  which  distinguished  the 
earlier  codes.  Her  part  in  the  religious  life  was  in- 
ferior. Her  chief  business  was  to  provide  sons  that 
the  father's  name  and  immortality  might  be  secured. 
In  Greece  she  was  largely  a  nonentity,  in  Rome  as  in 
India  she  was  under  "  Perpetual  Tutelage." 

The  ancient  Germans,  Tacitus  tells  us,  held  women 
in  high  esteem.     The  management  of  home  and  chil- 

173 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

dren  was  left  to  them  entirely.  They  deferred  to  their 
opinions  and  consulted  them  on  all  important  matters, 
regarding  their  decisions  as  oracles.  They  had  a 
horror  of  their  women  becoming  captive  slaves  to 
their  enemies  and  oftentimes  when  a  battle  seemed  to 
be  lost  the  encouragement  and  example  of  the  women 
would  inspire  the  men  to  fresh  efforts  with  the  result 
that  defeat  was  frequently  turned  to  victory.  The 
German  was  a  warrior  pure  and  simple,  when  not 
fighting  he  was  slothful  and  indolent,  spending  his 
time  in  drinking,  gluttony,  and  sleep,  and  the  care  of 
his  lands  and  flocks  was  left  wholly  in  the  hands  of 
the  women,  children,  and  old  men.  That  woman  was 
so  little  discriminated  against  was  probably  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  mother-right  seems  to  have  lingered 
longer  among  nomadic  people,  and  the  Grermans  at 
this  time  were  essentially  nomadic.  One  writer 
affirms  that  descent  was  in  the  female  line  in  all 
nomadic  tribes.  They  had  very  few  laws  for  political 
life  and  the  desire  for  wealth  had  not  begun.  But 
just  as  soon  as  legal  enactments  were  formulated  we 
find  the  German  protecting  himself  at  woman's  ex- 
pense and  decreeing  severer  punishments  for  her  than 
for  himself  for  the  same  offence.  For  instance  in 
early  Anglo-Saxon  England  a  free  man  was  fined 
for  stealing,  while  a  free  woman  for  the  same  crime 
was  either  drowned  or  taken  to  some  high  place  and 

174 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

thrown  over  to  be  dashed  to  pieces  ou  the  rocks.  A 
Saxon  lord  who  was  prosecuting  attorney,  judge,  and 
executioner  in  one  over  his  retainers  and  slaves,  and 
had  on  his  manor  a  gallows,  tumbrel,  whipping-post 
and  drowning-pit,  cared  nothing  about  the  lives  of 
either  sex,  yet  he  reserved  the  most  brutal  form  of 
punishment  for  the  female  slave  who  stole,  condemn- 
ing her  to  be  burnt  to  death  and  making  her  sister 
slaves  carry  the  sentence  into  effect. 

It  is  evident,  moreover,  that  the  German  father 
exercised  considerable  control  over  his  family,  for 
one  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  laws  in  King  Alfred's  time 
deals  with  the  father's  right  to  sell  his  daughter  into 
slavery  until  she  was  sixteen  years  old.  There  is  also 
a  law  of  one  of  the  early  Saxon  kings  which  runs 
thus:  "  If  a  man  buy  a  maiden  with  cattle,  let  the 
bargain  stand  if  it  be  without  guile";  but  it  pro- 
vides that  if  the  cattle  are  not  in  good  condition,  then 
both  the  daughter  and  cattle  shall  be  returned  to  their 
respective  owners  and  the  marriage  is  thus  annulled. 
This  shows  that  marriage  was  a  matter  of  commerce 
and  the  girl's  wishes  or  choice  were  not  consulted. 
A  widower  might  marry  again  in  a  month  but  a  widow 
was  prohibited  from  marrying  for  a  year.  A  man 
might  also  divorce  his  wife  for  adultery  but  a  wife 
could  not  divorce  her  husband  for  that  reason.  The 
murder  of  a  husband  by  a  wife  was  considered  a  more 

175 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

serious  crime  than  the  murder  of  a  wife  by  a  husband 
for,  as  she  was  subject  to  him  she  owed  him  the  faith 
and  loyalty  that  a  man  owed  to  his  sovereign  so  her 
crime  had  the  added  guilt  of  treason  and,  while  the 
nlan  was  punished  by  hanging,  the  woman  was  taken 
in  a  hurdle  to  the  gallows  and  publicly  burned ;  more- 
over, the  common  law  allowed  men  to  plead  "  Benefit 
of  Clergy  "  but  absolutely  denied  it  to  women.  This 
was  a  privilege  granted  to  men  in  holy  orders  and  it 
served  to  take  them  out  of  the  hands  of  the  temporal 
authorities  and  hand  them  over  to  the  ecclesiastical. 
This,  intended  at  first  to  apply  only  to  priests  or 
clerks  in  ''  orders,"  was  extended  to  all  laymen  who 
could  read  and  as  it  was  applicable  to  all  capital 
offences  it  was  a  fruitful  loop-hole  for  escape.  But 
learning  could  not  help  the  woman  for  by  no  chance 
could  she  be  a  priest.  Such  was  the  alleged  disability 
but  the  real  reason  was  that  she  was  a  woman. 

It  had  long  been  the  custom  to  punish  scolding 
women  by  sentencing  them  to  the  "  eucking  or  duck- 
ing stool  " — a  chair  into  which  they  were  strapped 
and  which  was  then  let  down  into  the  river — but 
another  instrument  was  devised  which  is  familiar  to 
every  one  who  has  visited  Edinburgh,  where  they  lie 
piled  up  in  heaps  on  the  floor  in  almost  every  comer 
of  the  museum.  The  "  branks  "  is  an  iron  muzzle 
which  went  over  the  head  and  was  locked  on.     It  had 

176 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

a  plate  made  of  iron  which  was  either  sharpened  or 
covered  with  spikes  and  which  fitted  over  the  mouth 
in  such  a  way  that  if  the  wearer  moved  her  tongue  it 
was  lacerated.  From  the  number  of  these  muzzles 
that  have  been  preserved  it  would  indicate  that  every 
family  man  had  one  at  his  disposal  and  doubtless 
many  a  woman  spent  many  a  day  wearing  this  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  being  a  thing  possessed. 
Prostitution,  petty  larceny,  and  venial  offences  were 
punished  in  this  way,  the  victim,  thus  muzzled  and 
with  a  rope  attached,  was  led  through  the  streets. 
This  was  in  practice  as  late  as  the  time  of  William 
IV,  1837.  While  on  the  subject  of  muzzles  there  is 
another  one  in  the  Cluny  Museum  of  Paris  but  it  was 
used  for  so  degrading  a  purpose  that  it  has  to  be  kept 
under  lock  and  key  and  can  be  shown  to  men  only. 
There  is  a  model  of  it  in  New  York  which  is  often  ex- 
hibited to  medical  students. 

Publicly  whipping  women  for  trifling  offences  was 
another  everyday  custom.  The  victim  was  stripped 
to  the  waist,  taken  to  the  market  place  and  flogged 
while  the  mob  looked  on  and  reviled.  Such  a  minor 
offence  as  being  drunk  on  Sunday  during  the  hours 
of  divine  service  was  punished  in  this  way.  Some- 
times the  mode  of  administration  was  varied,  for  it  is 
on  record  that  for  the  theft  of  a  handkerchief  a 
woman  was  stripped,  tied  to  the  cart's  tail  and  flogged 
12  17T 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

through  the  streets.  Any  theft  below  twelve  pence 
was  subject  to  this  form  of  correction,  and  all  women 
vagrants  were  also  treated  in  this  manner.  For  some 
of  these  offences  men  were  equally  severely  punished, 
but  some  were  reserved  exclusively  for  women  such 
as  the  branks  and  the  cucking  stool,  and  nothing 
could  be  more  outrageously  unjust  than  the  whipping 
of  all  mothers  of  illegitimate  children,  while  the 
fathers  were  not  even  sought  for.  Yet  while  the 
authorities  were  dealing  such  punishment  for  this 
offence  they  were  at  the  same  time  doing  all  that  lay 
in  their  power  to  encourage  it,  or  at  least  to  make  the 
way  easy  for  man's  indulgence,  for  they  were  herding 
men  and  women  together  in  gaols.  It  was  not  till 
Thomas  Howard  made  his  disclosures  that  they  were 
separated.  He  told  among  other  horrible  conditions 
of  finding  a  girl  who  was  sentenced  to  a  year's  im- 
prisonment locked  alone  all  day  in  the  work-shop  with 
two  soldiers.  Gaolers  at  that  time  were  allowed  to  flog 
women  and  put  them  in  irons.  The  present  genera- 
tion will  scarcely  believe  that  such  conditions  existed 
within  the  life  of  many  people  still  living,  but  it  was 
only  "  before  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury was  passed  that  the  whip  and  the  pillory,  so  far 
as  women  were  concerned,  ceased  to  be  employed  as 
instruments  of  correction.  Previously  the  women 
criminals  had  suffered  special  pains  and  penalties  be- 

178 


I 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

cause  they  belonged  to  the  female  sex."  As  this 
statement  is  made  on  the  authority  of  an  English 
barrister  it  may  pass  unchallenged. 

Woman's  sorest  grievance,  however,  came  from  the 
fact  that  the  law  authorised  husbands  to  administer 
corporal  punishment  to  their  wives.  While  in  the  case 
of  those  who  violated  the  laws  the  women  were  often 
more  severely  punished  than  the  men,  and  were  denied 
the  opportunities  for  escaping  punishment  which  were 
allowed  to  men  simply  because  they  were  women, 
the  right  to  beat  wives  included  all  women,  and  placed 
them  completely  at  the  mercy  of  an  ill-tempered  or 
possibly  drunken  brute,  and  in  a  country  like  Eng- 
land where  whisky  is  the  national  vice  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  accept  John  Stuart  Mill's  statement,  that  an 
English  wife  was  more  completely  at  the  mercy  of 
her  husband  than  a  Roman  slave  of  his  master  and 
that  he  could  even  kill  her  with  impunity  as  late  as 
seventy  years  ago,  provided  he  exercised  a  little 
caution. 

The  right  to  beat  wives  seems  to  have  come  like 
many  other  evils  with  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  it 
was  not  till  1878  that  a  law  was  passed  which  gave  to 
women  a  right  to  go  before  a  local  magistrate,  and  if 
she  managed  to  convince  him  that  her  life  was  in 
danger,  she  might  obtain  legal  separation.  The  offi- 
cials, however,  were  very  chary  about  granting  it.    The 

179 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

absurd  fiction  in  their  eyes  of  the  sanctity  of  the 
home  was  so  preponderant  that  they  thought  it  better 
in  the  interests  of  morality  to  have  the  mothers  of 
future  citizens  beaten  and  brutalised  than  to  loosen 
the  holy  tie  of  matrimony,  and  many  a  woman  was 
maimed  for  life  because  the  voice  of  the  law  insisted 
that  she  try  it  a  little  longer.  Probably  no  country 
has  such  a  reputation  for  wife  beating  as  England. 
"Women  were  "  freely  kicked,  stamped  on,  thrown 
down  stairs,  their  hair  pulled  out,  and  their  eyes 
gouged  out,"  yet  the  law  deliberated  over  by  the 
choicest  male  spirits  did  not  see  its  way  to  defending 
them  till  a  woman  held  the  reins  of  power. 

In  this  respect  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  infinitely  inferior 
to  his  Celtic  brother,  for  the  Gael  has  never  had  the 
reputation  of  a  wife  beater,  his  lively  imagination 
saving  him  from  such  degradation.  Not  so  many 
years  ago  an  English  mother  had  her  son  arrested 
and  she  testified  that  he  ''  beat  her  as  much  as  if  he 
had  been  her  husband."  Such  a  picture  of  domestic 
life  tells  its  own  story,  yet  it  is  much  more  than 
likely,  nay  rather  a  certainty,  that  if  the  court  rec- 
ords of  the  nineteenth  century  alone  were  examined 
wife  beating  and  drunkenness  would  form  a  very 
large  percentage  of  the  total  cases,  nor  would  that 
give  a  true  picture  of  actual  conditions,  for  women 
as  a  sex  prefer  to  endure  silently  rather  than  face 

180 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

publicity,  and  this,  too,  in  face  of  the  fact  that  wife 
beating  has  been  prohibited,  and  only  the  right  to 
shut  her  up  and  confine  her  indefinitely  at  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  husband  remained  to  him.  Justice 
Coleridge  of  living  memory  ruled,  that  "  the  husband 
in  certain  cases  has  a  right  to  confine  his  wife  in  his 
own  dwelling  and  restrain  her  from  liberty  for  an 
indefinite  time,"  a  law  which  enlightened  England 
only  repealed  in  1891,  less  than  twenty  years  ago. 

It  cannot  be  wondered  at,  however,  that  the  men 
were  wife  beaters  and  that  the  habit  given  and  fos- 
tered by  law,  which  read  "  the  husband  hath  by  law 
the  power  and  dominion  over  his  wife  and  may  keep 
her  by  force  within  the  bounds  of  duty  and  may  beat 
her,"  did  not  die  with  the  repealing  of  the  law  while 
the  law  itself  was  still  stripping  and  beating  her  pub- 
licly   when    it    declares    that    she    is    not    a    person 
but  merely  an  incidental  fact.     The  tremendous  gulf 
between  the  highest  refinement  that  is  to  be  found 
anywhere  and  brutalised  degradation  that  the  intelli- 
gent observer  notes  on  the  streets  of  English  cities 
can  only  be  accounted  for  by  the  way  in  which  man 
and  law  has  treated  woman.     England  is  reaping  her 
reward.     Drunkenness  is  excessively  common  among 
the  lower  orders  of  her  women.    Brutalised,  ignorant, 
beaten,  down-trodden,  despised,  and  despising  them- 
selves, with  the  whole  legal  machinery'  against  them, 

181 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

with  those  who  swore  to  protect  them  authorised  by 
law  to  be  task  masters  wielding  the  whip,  there  was 
nothing  to  inspire  or  lift  them  up  to  higher  things  and 
they  resorted  to  man's  way  of  seeking  solace.  It  is 
impossible  to  sow  tares  and  raise  wheat.  It  is  equally 
impossible  for  such  women  to  bring  forth  children 
who  will  make  worthy  citizens,  and  the  unemployed 
that  we  hear  so  much  of  and  who  are  a  menace  to  the 
country  are  largely  the  offspring,  without  initiative, 
without  energy,  without  courage,  without  hope,  with- 
out intelligence  of  women  brutalised  by  man's  laws. 
It  is  the  inevitable  penalty  that  man's  egoism  has 
forced  on  humanity. 

But  the  sum  of  her  disabilities  is  only  half  told. 
It  seems  to  have  been  impossible  for  a  woman  to  apply 
for  a  divorce  before  1836  no  matter  how  much  a  hus- 
band might  abuse  her,  and  even  to-day  so  unjust  is 
the  law  that  she  has  to  prove  cruelty  against  him  as 
well  as  infidelity,  while  the  latter  charge  alone  suffices 
to  set  him  free.  In  the  matter  of  her  own  property 
a  wife  had  absolutely  no  rights  or  power,  for  by  mar- 
riage not  only  was  she  merged  in  her  husband  and 
possessed  by  him  as  a  slave  owner  possessed  his  slave, 
but  everything  that  belonged  to  her,  real  or  personal, 
even  the  clothes  on  her  back  as  well  as  anything  she 
might  inherit  after  marriage.  He  had  sole  control 
and  management  of  her  freehold  estates,  and  to  all 

182 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

the  profit  accruing  therefrom.  She  had  no  power  to 
sell  any  of  her  landed  property,  either  with  or  with- 
out her  husband's  consent.  Her  leasehold  property 
went  to  him,  and  he  could  sell  it  if  he  chose,  while  it 
became  his  absolutely  after  her  death,  and  all  her 
personal  effects,  such  as  furniture,  money,  jewelry 
which  she  had  at  marriage  or  might  inherit  later,  be- 
came his,  and  he  might  if  he  chose  sell  them.  Further 
he  could,  at  death,  will  away  all  her  property  as  well 
as  his  own,  except  the  one-third  dower  right  which  the 
law  allowed  her  but  in  which  she  had  only  a  life 
interest.  Thus  in  the  case  of  a  rich  woman  marrying 
a  poor  man,  all  she  had  became  his  absolutely,  and  at 
his  death  he  might  will  it  all  to  his  own  family  ex- 
cept the  dower  which  also  went  to  them  at  her  death. 
A  woman  could  not  open  a  bank  account,  she  could 
not  sue  in  her  own  name,  nor  legally  collect  her  own 
earnings  if  she  worked  after  marriage,  not  even  if 
she  had  been  deserted  and  was  wholly  supporting 
herself.  A  case  which  illustrates  the  working  of  the 
law  was  told  before  a  convention  of  women  some  years 
ago.  It  was  as  follows :"  a  woman  who  had  been 
living  separately  from  her  husband,  and  was  support- 
ing herself  by  her  needle,  was  injured  on  the  railway. 
She  could  not  sue  for  damages  in  her  own  name,  so 
had  to  get  her  husband's  consent  to  sue  in  his.  The 
jury  awarded  damages  but  the  award  went  not  to  the 

183 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

injured  woman,  but  to  the  husband  who  had  deserted 
her.  It  was  not  till  1857  that  any  relief  was  given 
to  married  women,  in  the  matter  of  having  a  right 
to  their  earnings,  and  even  then  it  was  restricted  to 
deserted  and  assaulted  wives  only.  Indolent  and 
drunken  husbands,  so  long  as  they  did  not  beat  their 
wives,  could  collect  their  wages  and  spend  it  as  they 
saw  fit,  until  1870,  though  wife  and  children  were 
starving.  So  difficult  is  it  to  wring  common  justice 
from  the  hands  of  men.  Complete  property  emanci- 
pation did  not  come  until  1883,  and  then  only  after  a 
long  hard  fight. 

So  much  for  property.  Let  us  now  look  for  a 
moment  at  the  wife's  position  in  her  own  family. 
Her  children  did  not  belong  to  her  in  any  sense,  but 
wholly  to  the  father.  She  had  not  even  joint  control 
with  him,  for  the  law  reads,  "  by  nature  and  by 
nurture  the  father  is  the  sole  parent,"  a  statement 
both  terms  of  which  are  false,  the  first  almost  abso- 
lutely, the  latter  relatively.  But  that  is  not  all.  Be- 
fore 1839  not  only  had  the  mother  no  legal  right  to  the 
children  during  the  father's  lifetime,  but  he  could, 
and  often  did,  at  his  death  hand  them  over  to  a 
guardian  and  debar  the  mother  from  seeing  them. 
She  was  simply  a  servant  in  her  own  home,  to  her 
husband  and  her  children,  and  writers  of  the  period 
did  not  hesitate  to  describe  her  as  such,  for  Baron 

184 


I 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

Allerton  wrote,  that  "  a  wife  is  nothing  but  the  ser- 
vant of  her  husband."  Summed  up  briefly  woman's 
position  before  the  law  till  1878  was  simply  that  of  a 
servant.  She  owned  nothing,  not  even  her  own  body 
and  scarcely  her  soul,  for  if  her  husband  was  so  dis- 
posed he  could  beat  her  till  she  was  so  brutalised 
that  all  traces  of  such  a  refinement  were  lost;  the  law 
itself  did  it  on  a  wholesale  scale  till  1817.  Her  only 
business  in  life  was  to  wait  on  her  husband  and  to 
bring  children  into  the  Avorld  who  were  not  hers,  and 
if  circumstances  demanded,  as  they  do  in  the  vast 
majority  of  cases,  she  had  to  spend  her  life  in  ser- 
vice for  those  who  Mere  not  accounted  to  her.  Yet 
in  face  of  the  fact  that  an  unmarried  woman,  after 
she  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty-one,  was  absolutely 
free  as  to  her  person  and  her  property  and  could  sue 
in  her  own  name,  the  legal  luminary  Blackstone  tells 
us  in  his  commentaries,  that  the  law  treated  married 
women  with  especial  favour  and  care  for  their  inter- 
ests. When  a  man  of  his  education  and  intelligence 
has  so  little  judicial  sense  that  he  could  not  discrimi- 
nate between  black  and  white  what  could  be  expected 
from  man-made  laws  except  the  clumsy,  involved 
machinery  misnamed  justice  which  misses  its  point 
seven  times  out  of  every  ten. 

But  the  crowning  act  of  social,  moral,  and  legal 
cowardice  still  remains  to  be  told :  the  punishment, 

18& 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

or  rather,  the  legally  authorised  immunity  for  seduc- 
tion. While  the  married  mother  has  no  rights  whatso- 
ever to  her  child,  the  mother  of  the  illegitimate  child 
was  legally  its  sole  parent,  and  until  recently  was 
alone  responsible  for  its  support.  Even  to-day  the 
father's  legal  responsibility,  if  forced  upon  him, 
amounts  to  the  munificent  sum  of  fifty  cents  a  week 
till  the  child  is  thirteen  years  of  age.  In  the  words 
of  Lord  Macaulay  it  must  be  conceded,  that  "  if 
there  be  a  word  of  truth  in  history,  women  have 
always  been,  and  still  are,  over  the  greater  part  of 
the  globe,  humble  companions,  playthings,  captives, 
menials,  beasts  of  burden.  Except  in  a  few  happy 
and  civilised  communities,  they  are  strictly  in  a  state 
of  personal  slavery.  Even  in  those  countries  where 
they  are  best  treated,  the  laws  are  generally  unfa- 
vourable to  them,  with  respect  to  almost  all  the  points 
in  which  they  are  most  deeply  interested." 

All  readers  who  have  followed  the  dates  given 
from  time  to  time  through  this  chapter,  in  which 
women  were  granted  some  relief  from  the  harsh  legal 
disabilities  must  be  struck  with  the  fact  that  they 
are,  almost  completely,  limited  to  the  reign  of  the  late 
Queen  Victoria  of  blessed  memory.  Previous  to  her 
reign,  it  would  seem  almost  as  if  the  law  recognised 
women  only  when  it  saw  a  chance  to  mulct  them  of 
something  or  to  punish  them,  for  it  dealt  with  them 

186 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

all  through  the  IMiddle  Ages  more  and  more  harshly. 
From  William  the  Conqueror  (1066),  when  a  woman 
slave  was  burnt  to  death  for  a  trifling  theft,  to  Henry 
VIII,  when  she  was  boiled  to  death  in  a  cauldron  for 
administering  poison  and  burnt  at  the  stake  till  1790 
for  murdering  her  husband,  are  long  steps.  During 
all  these  years  she  was  punished,  in  many  cases,  more 
severely  than  men  for  the  same  offences,  and  charged 
with  many  that  he  was  supposed  to  be  incapable  of 
committing,  such  as  scolding  with  its  branks,  and 
witchcraft,  punishable  with  death — which  was  an  en- 
actment of  Henry  VIII 's  reign  and  lasted  till  the 
time  of  George  IV,  1826,  when  the  punishment  became 
imprisonment. 

From  the  accession  of  the  late  Queen,  more  social 
legislation  for  the  relief  of  woman  took  place  than 
was  done  all  put  together  for  eight  hundred  years 
previously.  The  present  woman's  movement  began, 
it  is  true,  with  the  French  Revolution,  but  it  would 
have  died  with  it  too,  as  it  actually  did  in  France — 
for  the  Code  of  the  first  Napoleon  was  a  return  to 
barbarism — had  not  a  woman  come  to  the  English 
throne.  No  greater  blessing  ever  happened  to  the 
human  family  than  that  the  numerous  progeny  of 
George  III  left  no  male  issue  to  succeed  them.  The 
fairest  day  that  dawned  on  this  punishment-weary 
planet  since  the  close  of  the  matriarchate,  when  the 

187 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

bond  that  held  society  together  was  mother-love,  and 
fraternity,  liberty  and  equality  were  the  guiding  prin- 
ciples, was  the  dawn  that  hailed  the  young  girl  of 
eighteen  as  queen  of  the  British  realm.  From  that 
hour  the  mother  of  the  race  has  been  marching 
steadily  forward,  and  has  been  making  rapid  strides 
towards  regaining  her  long  lost  freedom.  No  one  can 
look  back  over  the  last  fifty  years  without  being 
amazed  at  the  change  that  has  come  over  social  life, 
and  few  would  have  been  bold  enough  to  predict,  and 
none  would  have  believed  if  it  had  been  predicted, 
that  woman  had  the  mental  and  moral  fibre  to  force 
lier  way  upwards  against  laws,  social  customs,  and 
opinions  and  to  compel,  by  peaceful  methods,  every 
door  to  open  at  which  she  knocked. 

It  will  be  argued  by  many,  that  this  change  was  due 
to  the  more  liberal  views  of  men  and  advancing 
civilisation,  but  this  is  the  superficial  reason  and 
the  very  smallest  factor,  if  indeed,  it  is  admitted 
at  all.  Men  do  not  become  liberal  over  night,  nor  does 
civilisation  advance  at  such  a  pace,  without  some  pow- 
erful factor  behind  it,  as  to  give  the  despised  sex  of 
yesterday  almost  complete  freedom  after  having 
kept  it  in  perpetual  tutelage  for  thousands  of 
years,  and  that,  too,  in  a  country  pre-eminently  con- 
servative; besides,  every  inch  of  ground  had  to  be 
fought  for  and  wrested  from  man's  reluctant  hands. 

188 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

A  powerful  factor  there  was  in  that  quiet,  un- 
obtrusive, firm  woman,  who  lived  in  the  garish  light 
of  the  gaze  of  all  the  earth  for  sixty-four  years,  a 
life  without  reproach.  As  the  Saviour  lifted  up 
humanity  so  Queen  Victoria  lifted  up  womanhood, 
working  a  silent  revolution,  giving  to  them  courage 
and  self-confidence,  which  enabled  them  to  go  for- 
ward and  demand  what  was  their  right  and  due, 
teaching  men  that  the  day  of  down-trodden  woman 
was  past,  commanding  their  respect  because  she  was 
immeasurably  superior  to  every  one  of  her  predeces- 
sors back  to  Elizabeth  with  the  possible  exception  of 
William  III  of  Orange.  She  taught  men  that  rule  did 
not  mean  brute  force,  a  lesson  they  had  to  learn  from 
the  very  alphabet,  but  that  sovereign  power,  firmly 
exercised,  and  maternal  tenderness  could  go  hand  in 
hand  together,  and  bring  about  results  that  man's 
method  of  ruling  could  not  have  accomplished  in 
centuries.  Above  all  she  taught  woman  her  power 
over  man,  for  with  the  fall  of  physical  force,  the 
whole  fabric  of  superiority  over  woman  which  he  had 
built  up  fell  away.  Muscle  had  been  its  palladium, 
the  sole  foundation  stone  on  which  his  claim  really 
rested,  and  when  that  weapon  was  removed,  the  real 
truth  stood  forth  in  all  its  nakedness,  that  man  had 
been  shielding  himself  and  providing  for  his  own 
indulgence  in  the  lust  of  power,  of  possession,  and  of 

189 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  flesh,  by  using  every  instrument  that  life  afforded 
against  the  superior  author  of  his  being — his  sub- 
creator. 

So  similar  are  the  laws  which  oppressed  women  in 
England,  France,  and  America,  that,  having  given 
the  English  laws  at  some  length,  it  is  only  necessary 
to  take  a  cursory  glance  at  the  other  two  countries. 
As  these  are  three  of  the  leading  lands  on  the  globe, 
the  imagination  may  be  given  free  range  as  to  her 
condition  elsewhere,  though  her  improving  condition 
in  these  countries  is  reflected  in  all  others.  The 
French  code  distinctly  states  that  the  husband  pos- 
sesses marital  authority  over  the  persons  of  wife  and 
children,  as  the  head  of  the  family.  Napoleon's  view 
of  woman's  liberty  is  shown  by  the  remark  he  made 
to  his  colleagues,  "A  husband  ought  to  have  absolute 
control  over  the  actions  of  his  wife ;  he  has  a  right  to 
say  to  her:  Madam,  you  shall  not  go  out;  Madam, 
you  shall  not  go  to  the  theatre ;  Madam,  you  shall  not 
visit  such  and  such  a  person." 

Property  restrictions  in  France  were  much  the  same 
as  in  England,  the  spinster  was  free  to  do  as  she 
chose,  but  the  femme  couverte  was  despoiled  of  every- 
thing. She  could  not  dispose  of  her  real  estate  with- 
out her  husband's  consent,  though  she  might  be 
separated  from  him.  For  a  violation  of  the  marriage 
vow  the  husband  can  obtain  a  divorce  and  the  wife, 

190 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

if  convi'ctecl,  may  be  imprisoned  for  a  term  varying 
from  three  months  to  two  years.  She  on  the  other 
hand  has  no  redress  unless  her  husband  keeps  a  mis- 
tress in  the  house  under  her  very  eyes  and  the  penalty 
imposed  on  him  is  a  fine  varying  from  twenty  to  five 
hundred  dollars.  But  unfair  as  all  this  is  the  crown- 
ing injustice  is  the  treatment  of  the  mothers  of 
illegitimate  children.  It  is  pitiful  and  if  it  was  not  so 
serious  it  would  be  ludicrous  to  note  how  the  framers 
of  the  law,  men  of  trained  judicial  minds  w^ho  are 
supposed  to  represent  the  highest  intelligence  and 
morality,  have  not  hesitated  to  stoop  to  the  most 
bald  sophistry  and  to  contradict  in  one  enactment  the 
statements  of  another.  According  to  the  French  code 
any  child  born  in  wedlock  belongs  to  the  father,  and 
is  under  his  supreme  control  till  of  age ;  according  to 
the  same  code,  any  child  born  out  of  wedlock  is  re- 
garded as  fatherless,  and  that  men  might  be  pro- 
tected from  the  disastrous  consequences  it  stipulated 
that  the  illegitimate  child  could  claim  its  mother  by 
legal  process,  and  could  sue  her  for  maintenance,  but 
forbade  it  to  seek  its  father,  for  fear  of  the  scandals 
that  such  a  quest  might  provoke. 

In  the  first  enactment  man's  vanity  and  love  of 
power  is  pandered  to,  in  the  second  he  is  protected 
from  the  consequence  of  his  unlawful  self-gratifica- 
tion, and  so  much  trouble  did  the  code  take  to  con- 

191 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

firm  his  social  cowardice,  that  it  provided,  that  "  no 
promise  of  marriage  even  when  made  in  writing,  no 
co-habitation  even  though  lasting  for  years,  no  written 
avowal  of  paternity  made  either  at  the  time  of  the 
birth  of  a  child  or  later,  is  legal  evidence  which  would 
compel  the  father  to  support  his  natural  child. ' '  The 
maxim  is  "  that  the  author  of  the  child  must  support 
it."  In  other  words  the  mother  is  the  author  of  the 
illegitimate  child  but  not  of  the  legitimate  one. 

The  authority  which  is  here  quoted  goes  on  to  say 
that  "  since  the  promulgation  of  the  Napoleonic  code 
in  1804,  you  cannot  find  in  the  whole  history  of 
French  jurisprudence  one  single  case  of*  a  man  forced 
to  acknowledge  his  child,"  and  the  result  is  that 
"  abortion  and  infanticide  consequently  increased 
until  they  have  reached  such  a  point  that  the  juries, 
weary  of  punishing  without  producing  any  effect,  now 
often  simply  acquit  the  culprit.  Such  is  the  present 
situation :  the  seducer  responsible  neither  to  the  child 
nor  to  its  mother;  the  latter,  if  poor,  reduced  to  in- 
fanticide or  prostitution  (1884)." 

The  condition  of  women  was  to  a  large  extent 
responsible  for  the  French  Revolution.  Every  reader 
of  history  knows  the  important  part  they  played  in 
that  terrible  struggle.  Some  of  the  ablest  and  most 
enlightened  men  of  France,  seeing  the  danger  ahead, 
pleaded  hard  for  their  rights  to  be  recognised  before 

192 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

that  awful  outbreak  began,  at  the  recollection  of 
which  one  still  shudders.  Condorcet,  the  Abbe 
Pauchet,  the  Abbe  Sieyes,  and  Saint  Just  are  all  on 
record  in  support  of  absolute  freedom  for  women, 
as  the  really  great  men  in  all  countries  always  are. 
A  splendid  body  too  of  capable  and  noble  women 
made  a  most  creditable  effort  for  freedom  and  for  a 
time  it  seemed  that  they  would  win  the  day.  But 
the  men  leaders  of  the  revolt  did  as  the  great  body 
of  men  ever  do,  they  made  use  of  them  till  the  strug- 
gle was  well  under  way,  encouraging  them  in  their 
hopejs  only  to  crush  them  ruthlessly  when  they  no 
longer  needed  them.  The  French  Revolution  with  its 
unparallelled  atrocities  will  ever  remain  a  monument 
to  man's  incapable  rule  and  a  warning  of  the  penal- 
ties a  nation  must  suffer  sooner  or  later  for  the  abuse 
of  woman.  The  history  of  life  shows  that  she  is  a 
long-enduring  creature,  but  when  the  "  last  straw 
has  been  laid  on  the  camel's  back,"  she  turns  with  a 
fury  that  makes  the  strength  of  men  as  feebleness. 
One  of  the  petitions  which  the  women  presented 
to  the  unfortunate  Louis  XVI  shows  something  of 
the  desperate  straits  to  which  the  labouring  women 
were  reduced.  It  prayed  the  King  that  '*  men  may 
not  ply  the  trades  belonging  to  women,  whether  dress- 
making, embroidery,  or  haberdashery.  Let  them  leave 
us,  at  least,  the  needle  and  the  spindle  and  we  will 
13  193 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

engage  not  to  wield  the  compass  or  the  square.  We 
desire  to  be  enlightened  and  to  have  employments, 
not  in  order  to  usurp  men's  authority  but  that  we 
may  be  more  valued,  and  have  the  means  of  livelihood 
if  overtaken  by  misfortune."  We  heard  a  great  deal 
a  few  years  ago,  and  we  occasionally  hear  the  murmur 
yet,  of  the  injustice  done  to  man  by  woman's  com- 
peting with  him  in  industrial  pursuits — here  is  the 
other  side  of  the  picture.  Further,  before  the  sup- 
pression of  the  old  trade  corporations  in  1776 
"  women  could  not  acquire  the  right  to  the  complete 
exercise  of  the  trade  of  milliner  and  of  other  callings 
unless  married,  or  unless  a  man  sold  them  the  use  of 
his  name  that  they  might  obtain  the  privilege.  It 
is  quite  surprising, ' '  says  our  authority,  Mr.  Theodore 
Stanton,  "  that  a  woman  could  be  regent  in  France, 
but  until  1776  she  might  not  be  a  milliner  at  Paris. 
Millinery  is  one  of  the  few  occupations  that  women 
have  latterly  gained  from  men." 

In  America  where  woman  is  freer  than  in  any 
other  land,  she  still  has  many  legal  disabilities,  and 
what  legal  freedom  she  has  has  been  gained  within 
thirty  years.  The  child  of  the  married  woman  be- 
longs to  the  father,  except  in  a  few  western  states, 
while  the  old  story  of  the  moral  coward,  shifting  the 
burden  of  the  illegitimate  child  on  the  girl  he  ruined, 
is  as  true  in  Ainerica  as  elsewhere.  In  most  of  the 
states  women  now  control  their  own  property,  but 

194 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

there  were  many  exceptions  to  this  as  late  as  1888, 
and  there  are,  we  believe,  still  some.  The  common 
law  of  England  is  the  foundation  of  American  juris- 
prudence, and  Blackstone  says  that,  "  woman  is  a 
perpetual  minor,  that  husband  and  wife  are  one  and 
that  one  is  the  husband." 

In  those  eastern  states  where  this  was  unmodified, 
a  woman  had  no  more  rights  than  her  sister  in  Eng- 
land. Her  husband  was  allowed  by  law  *'  to  punish 
her  with  a  stick  no  bigger  than  his  thumb,"  and  she 
had  no  redress.  She  could  not  rent  a  house;  her 
earnings  belonged  to  her  husband,  and  he  owned  all 
her  real  estate.  In  Massachusetts  until  some  time  in 
the  eighties  a  widow  had  no  right  to  be  buried  in  the 
family  lot,  and  she  only  secured  what  we  would  now 
call  a  common  decency  after  a  long  hard  fight.  In 
a  number  of  the  eastern  states  the  law  read,  "  the 
widow  may  remain  only  forty  days  in  her  husband's 
residence  after  his  death  without  paying  rent, "  though 
in  most  cases  she  had  probably  helped  him  to  save 
the  money  which  bought  the  house,  and  this  only 
twenty  years  ago.  It  was  only  some  time  during  the 
past  few  decades  that  married  women  gained  the 
right  to  own  their  own  clothes,  and  it  took  eleven  years 
of  agitation  and  struggle  to  get  the  bill  passed. 

Such  being  the  case  it  becomes  very  evident  that 
America  has  not  become  woman's  paradise  because 
her  men  are  any  more  liberal  than  their  brothers  in 

195 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

other  lands.  Had  they  been  any  more  generously  dis- 
posed, those  unjust  restrictions  of  the  common  law  of 
England  would  never  have  become  law  in  America. 
But,  on  the  contrary,  Ave  find  them  resisting  for  eleven 
years,  woman's  most  primitive  and  personal  right  to 
the  ownership  of  her  clothes,  and  that  only  thirty 
years  ago.  Yet  American  men  take  the  credit  of 
woman 's  freedom  to  themselves,  and  American  women 
are  constantly  repeating,  that  the  men  of  their  land 
make  the  best  husbands,  all  unconscious  of  where  the 
truth  really  lies. 

It  is  not  only  not  due  to  his  generosity  that  woman 
here  is  reasonably  free,  but  it  is  to  his  exceeding  dis- 
credit that  she  has  had  to  struggle  and  wrestle  with 
him,  as  hard  as  her  European  sister,  for  he  owes  the 
result  of  the  revolution,  which  gave  him  political 
freedom,  just  as  much  to  his  foremothers  as  to  his 
forefathers.  No  country  ever  did  or  ever  will  wage 
war  unless  the  women  stand  behind  it.  If  the  Colonial 
wives  and  mothers  had  not,  by  their  untiring  energy, 
sacrifice,  and  labours,  carried  on  the  industries  and 
initiated  new  ones  to  supply  the  sinews  of  war,  and 
by  their  moral  support  inspired  the  men,  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution  might  have  come  to  an  ignominious 
end.  But  the  freedom  which  set  man  free  left  him 
just  as  closely  the  heir  to  the  biological  endowments 
of  his  hairy  ancestors  as  his  brothers  elsewhere,  and 

196 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

he  did  just  what  the  Frenchmen  did,  he  used  woman 
to  gain  his  liberty  but  kept  her  chains  on. 

We  must  seek  elsewhere,  then,  for  the  cause  of 
woman's  unparallelled  freedom,  and  where  but  to 
herself?  Had  she  been,  to  the  same  extent  as  her 
European  sisters,  the  psychological  victim  of  centu- 
ries upon  centuries  of  abuse,  her  position  would  be  no 
better  than  theirs.  No  exception  can  be  taken  to 
these  statements,  even  by  the  most  sensitive  men, 
when  men  themselves  have  crystallised  it  into  a  hard 
legal  fact.  Moreover,  in  calling  attention  to  the  laws 
against  woman,  only  the  merest  fringe  of  the  subject 
has  been  touched.  Lester  Ward,  in  speaking  of  the 
laws  discriminating  against  woman,  says,  "  When  a 
student  of  law,  T  scheduled  scores  of  them,  and  could 
fill  a  dozen  pages  with  a  bare  enumeration  of  such  as 
still  form  a  part  of  the  common  law  of  England  as 
taught  to  law  classes  even  in  the  United  States.  All 
this  is  simply  the  embodiment,  in  the  jurisprudence 
of  nations,  of  the  universal  man-supremacy  world 
view,  and  it  has  been  unquestionably  acquiesced  in  by 
all  mankind,  including  the  women  themselves."  The 
attitude  of  woman,  however,  is  not  relevant,  she  is 
not  a  thinker;  having  been  reduced  to  inanity  she  is, 
in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  a  mere  reflex  of  father, 
brother,  lover,  or  husband,  and  would  shrink  from 
having  it  attributed  to  her  that  slic  has  any  opinions 

197 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

on  the  great  issues  of  life,  which  differ  from  those 
current  in  the  home  or  the  circle  in  which  she  moves. 
"Woman  is  freer  in  America,  because  from  the  be- 
ginning she  asserted  herself,  and  she  has  steadily 
maintained  her  position.  And  therein  lies  the  whole 
question  of  man  versus  woman.  "Without  attaching 
any  blame  to  man  for  it,  he  is  biologically  inferior 
to  woman.  It  was  the  Almighty's  fiat,  and  is;  and 
laws  and  institutions,  religions  and  customs,  contin- 
ual assertions  by  man,  and  even  woman's  belief  and 
acceptance  of  his  point  of  view  can  never  alter  the 
decree  of  the  Eternal,  that  woman,  whom  He  intended 
from  the  beginning  to  be  the  restraining  and  uplift- 
ing influence,  must  and  will  be  restored  to  a  position 
where  she  can  fulfil  her  mission,  and  she  can  only 
do  that  when  she  ceases  to  be  despised  by  man,  and 
she  will  only  cease  to  be  despised  when  human  laws 
recognise  her  full,  unqualified  equality,  for  it  is 
human  to  despise  that  which  is  limited.  Surely  this 
is  the  truth  on  the  physical  side,  that  man's  laws 
have  declared,  she  is  muscularly  inferior,  therefore 
he  took  advantage  of  her  wherever  advantage  could 
be  taken.  But  she  is  his  superior,  not  of  her  own 
merits  but  biologically,  in  those  qualities  whicE  alone 
make  true  progress,  the  altruistic,  and  the  moment 
she  had  reached  a  plane  where  she  could  assert  her- 
self, we  see  man  accepting  the  relation,  and  yielding 
the  palm  to  superiority.    M.  Conte,  who  at  one  time 

198 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

declared  woman  to  be  in  a  state  of  "  perpetual 
infancy,"  and  of  "  fundamental  inferiority,"  later 
testified  that  "  the  female  sex  is  certainly  superior  to 
ours  in  the  most  fundamental  attribute  of  the  spe- 
cies, the  tendency  to  make  sociability  prevail  over 
personality,"  and  again  "  female  supremacy  becomes 
evident  when  we  consider  the  spontaneous  disposi- 
tion of  the  affectionate  sex,  always  to  further  moral- 
ity, the  sole  end  of  all  our  conceptions." 

This  is  the  reason  which  underlies  woman's  position 
in  America.  The  causes  which  enabled  her  to  trample 
under  foot  the  social  order  of  long  ages  are  many 
and  varied.  It  is  one  of  the  peculiar  and  highly 
interesting  phenomena  of  life,  that,  when  conditions 
are  ripe  for  a  change,  there  always  arises  a  corre- 
sponding condition  which  excites  the  change.  Women 
in  Europe  had  been  slowly  asserting  themselves,  and 
just  in  proportion  as  their  influence  increased,  men 
were  acquiring  moral  perceptions ;  for  these  t\\io 
phenomena,  being  biological  complements,  exactly 
reflect  and  measure  one  another.  As  a  result,  in  time, 
many  of  the  worst  features  of  the  law  were  being 
"more  honoured  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observ- 
ance," and  men  in  the  best  classes  of  the  community 
were  ceasing  to  avail  themselves  of  all  the  severity 
that  the  law  allowed.  The  fear  of  bodily  abuse  was 
passing  away,  and  that  was  the  "  handwriting  on  the 
wall,"  that  pronounced  the  ultimate  doom  of  man's 

199 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

supremacy.  The  spirit  of  the  larger  freedom  was 
abroad,  and  it  reached  a  progressive  point  at  the  out- 
break of  the  French  Revolution,  which  was  almost 
synchronous  with   the  independence   of  America. 

Though  French  women  won  nothing,  American 
wx)men  did.  Freedom  was  in  the  air.  The  cry  of  no 
taxation  without  representation  had  won  the  day, 
and  as  the  new  nation  was  born  because  of  a  success- 
ful protest  against  oppression,  in  the  very  nature  of 
things  the  women  shared  and  gloried  in  the  spirit 
of  freedom  they  had  worked  so  hard  to  win,  and  they 
embodied  it  in  their  individual  lives.  Alone,  thou- 
sands of  miles  from  their  European  neighbours,  on 
a  virgin  soil  with  limitless  resources,  it  became  part 
and  parcel  of  the  air  they  breathed,  and  before  men 
knew  M^hat  they  were  doing  they  had  taken  a  stand 
from  which  they  have  never  receded. 

American  men  have  never  wished  them  to  recede. 
They  are  proud  of  the  independence  of  their  women, 
now  that  it  is  done,  and  are  constantly  pointing  to 
themselves  with  pride,  as  they  compare  their  condi- 
tion with  that  of  European  women,  but  when  she 
makes  any  fresh  demand  we  see  clearly  that  her  free- 
dom is  not  his  gift  to  her,  but  what  she  took  for  her- 
self, and  what  he  had  not  the  moral  courage  to  attempt 
to  take  from  her.  European  men  are  continually 
sneering  at  what  they  term  the  subserviency  of  their 
American    brothers,    but    when    their    women    have 

200 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

reached  the  plane  of  freedom  of  the  American  woman, 
we  shall  see  exactly  the  same  transformation  taking 
place  in  their  attitude  for  the  same  reason,  that  they 
were  not  endowed  with  inherent  strength  to  resist. 

In  order  to  prove  that  man  was  a  coward  in  his 
relations  with  woman,  it  was  not  necessary  to  have 
recourse  to  the  legal  enactments  that  he  resorted  to 
for  his  protection,  for  observation  is  amply  sufficient, 
only  that  it  is  more  convincing  and  unanswerable  to 
have  him  make  his  own  confession.  No  one  can  look 
around  on  life  as  it  is  to-day,  whether  his  horizon  is 
the  broad  one  of  a  large  city  or  the  restricted  one 
of  a  country  hamlet,  without  being  forced  to  admit 
it.  The  desertion  of  wife  and  children,  and  worse 
still  of  motherless  children,  is  of  daily  occurrence. 
The  self-indulgence  in  liquor  and  other  vicious  habits 
that  wreck  the  lives  of  thousands  of  children  an- 
nually; the  widowers  who  marry  and  allow  the  new 
Avife,  if  she  is  so  disposed,  to  abuse  or  drive  forth  his 
children,  purchasing  their  own  domestic  peace  at 
the  expense  of  those  for  whose  existence  they  are 
responsible;  and  the  old  saw,  which  testifies  to  their 
disloyalty  to  the  most  sacred  tie  on  earth,  as  well  as 
to  their  subject  condition,  "  a  son  is  a  son  till  he  gets 
a  wife,  but  a  daughter  is  a  daughter  all  her  life"; 
these  are  some  of  the  cases  in  which  woman  as  a  moral 
being  towers  immeasurably  above  man.  And  what 
of  the  sustenance  of  the  widow  and  orphan?     The 

201 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

records  of  our  courts  tell  that  story  all  too  well.  In 
view  of  man 's  laws  and  of  his  private  moral  code  with 
regard  to  woman,  it  is  not  surprising  that  we  rarely 
hear  her  speak  of  him  as  her  protector.  This  is 
wholly  a  man's  phrase,  and  he  certainly  does  not  fail 
to  blow  his  own  trumpet,  but  noise  never  convinces, 
and  woman's  mind,  in  this  particular,  at  least,  is  too 
direct  and  critical  to  accept  a  fiction  which  asserts 
that  man  is  her  protector,  when  the  only  thing  she 
needs  protection  from  is  man. 

Next  to  the  law,  and  in  its  results  more  effectual 
than  the  law,  religion  has  been  used  unsparingly  to 
debase  and  degrade  woman.  All  creeds,  pagan  and 
Christian  alike,  have  denounced  her  and  decreed  for 
her  a  position  of  total  subjection,  and  all  alike  denied 
or  attempting  to  deny  her  the  possession  of  a  soul,  all 
have  accused  her  of  voluptuousness  and  warned  men 
not  to  allow  themselves  to  be  seduced  by  her.  Nothing 
else  could  be  expected  for  all  religions  are  man-made, 
even  the  Christian  being  freely  interpolated,  and 
solely  interpreted  by  him.  If  the  teachings  of  the 
divine  man,  Christ,  had  never  been  added  to  and 
weakened  and  subverted,  by  such  men  as  Paul;  if 
the  Gospels,  which  alone  contain  Christ's  instructions 
to  mankind,  had  been  the  sum  total  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, the  bloody  pages  of  history  might  not  have  had 
to  be  written  and  the  enormities  of  our  social  code 
might  never  have  existed,  for  He  declared  woman's 

202 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

equality,  and  her  leavening  influence  would  have 
made  itself  felt. 

The  Epistles  are  merely  the  views  of  the  men  who 
wrote  them,  with  much  added  thereto  which  is  wholly 
unwarranted  by  the  Christ  teaching  and  which  has 
done  infinitely  more  harm  to  the  cause  of  Christianity, 
than  any  wise  deduction  which  they  made  has  done 
good.  Paul's  doctrine  of  predestination  racked  one 
branch  of  the  church  for  centuries,  but  the  Master 
said  that,  He  did  not  will  the  death  of  a  sinner,  but 
rather  that  he  should  turn  from  his  wickedness  and 
live.  So  simple  and  comprehensive  a  statement  was 
not  subtle  enough  for  the  intricacies  of  Paul's  legal 
mind — a  Pharisee  of  the  Pharisees,  as  he  described 
himself — so  he  exceeded  his  province  by  attempting  to 
improve  and  enlarge  on  what  a  better  than  he  had  said. 

So  he  did  in  the  case  of  woman,  and  yet  the  church 
and  men  as  a  class  continually  tell  women  that  they 
may  well  be  faithful  to  it  as  they  owe  all  they  have 
gained  to  Christianity.  But  woman  has  passed  be- 
yond the  milk  diet  and  is  feeding  on  meat  and  she 
spurns  the  fiction.  She  knows  perfectly  well  that, 
had  the  church  based  its  teachings  more  on  Christ  and 
less  on  Paul,  she  would  owe  her  improved  condition 
to  it.  But  as  the  matter  now  stands,  she  owes  it 
wholly  to  her  own  inherent  power,  implanted  in  her 
by   the   Divine,    which   has    raised   her,    in    spite    of 

203 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  doctrines  of  dogmatic  theology.    At  the  beginning, 
women  had  a  well  defined  and  authoritative  position 
in  the  church.     They  were  ordained  to  the  ministry, 
officiated     as     deacons,     administered     the     rite     of 
baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper,  promulgated  tenets, 
interpreted    doctrines    and    founded   sects,   to   which 
even  their  names  Avere  given.     But  at  this  time  the 
Deity  was  not  assumed  to  be  of  the  masculine  gender, 
though  how  such  an  abstraction  as  "  Good,"  which  is 
the  origin  of  our  term  "  God,"  can  have  the  attribute 
of  gender,  it  is  hard  to  tell,  but  in  southern  Europe 
it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  the  Almighty  repre- 
sented as  a  full-bearded  man,   having  donned  even 
the  secondary  sexual  characteristics. 

The  Old  Testament,  like  the  early  church,  recognises 
the  feminine  principle  in  the  Divinity.  The  word 
Jehovah  is  Jah-Eve,  the  male  and  female.  The  name 
Adam  means  red,  while  Eve  means  the  life-giver.  In 
an  address  made  by  Mrs.  Jocelyn  Gage  a  few  years 
ago,  she  said  that  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
upon  Christ  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  when  He  was 
baptised  by  John,  was  sufficient  to  prove  ' '  the  equally 
feminine  nature  of  the  Divine,  were  other  testimony 
lacking,  the  dove,  among  all  ancient  nations,  symbol- 
ising the  feminine  principle.  Xot  until  after  His 
baptism,  when  the  spirit  or  feminine  principle  rested 
upon  and  united  itself  with  Him,  did  Jesus  take  up 
His  ministry.    As  spirit  in  the  Hebrew  answers  to  all 

204> 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

genders,  and  in  the  Greek  to  the  feminine  alone,  it 
is  easy  to  see  the  false  beliefs  engendered  by  church 
teachings  as  to  the  masculinity  and  fatherhood  alone 
of  God.  Our  records  of  the  first  three  Christian  cen- 
turies prove,  that  even  the  early  and  oftquoted  fathers 
of  the  church  regarded  the  third  person  of  the 
Trinity  as  feminine." 

But  whatever  Christ  might  teach,  man  had  no  idea 
of  recognising  woman  as  an  equal,  and  when  power, 
and  position,  and  wealth  were  to  be  had  from  the 
church,  he  set  himself  systematically  to  get  rid  of 
her,  and  the  "  Council  of  Laodicea,  365,  dismissed 
her  from  the  ministry  and  forbad  her  to  enter  the 
Altar;  the  Council  of  Orleans,  511  a.d.,  shut  her  out 
from  the  diaconate;  the  Council  of  Auxerre,  587  a.d., 
forbade  her  to  receive  the  Eucharist  in  her  bare  hands 
because  of  her  impurity,  or  to  sing  in  church  because 
of  her  inherent  wickedness,  while  the  Council  of 
Macon,  595,  discussed  whether  she  had  a  soul." 

On  another  occasion  they  deliberated  as  to  whether 
"  women  ought  to  be  called  human  beings,"  and  St. 
Chrysostom  asks,  "  What  is  woman  but  an  enemy  of 
friendship,  an  unavoidable  punishment,  a  necessary 
evil,  a  natural  temptation,  a  desirable  affliction,  a 
constantly  flowing  source  of  tears,  a  wicked  work  of 
nature  covered  with  a  shining  varnish  ";  to  which 
St.  Ambrose  adds,  "  Adam  was  beguiled  by  Eve,  not 
Eve  by  Adam.    It  is  just  that  woman  should  take  as 

205 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

her  ruler,  him  whom  she  incited  to  sin,  that  he  may 
not  fall  a  second  time  through  female  levity." 

The  weakness  of  man,  in  allowing  himself  to  be 
so  easily  beguiled,  never  seems  to  have  presented 
itself  to  these  worthies,  so  they  decree  that  the 
stronger  being — woman,  the  one  who  could  beguile — 
be  under  the  control  of  the  weaker  being — man,  the 
one  who  was  beguiled — and  they  avowedly  give  as 
a  reason,  man 's  need  of  protection  from  woman.  The 
absurd  theories  to  which  the  dogma  leads  and  Avhich 
has  led  men  to  make  such  illogical  and  ludicrous 
statements  does  not  tend  to  inspire  the  female  sex 
with  any  high  respect  for  the  results  of  centuries  of 
a  monopoly  of  all  the  best  advantages  that  life  has 
afforded. 

Rome  had  seen  the  wisdom  and  fairness  of  accord- 
ing to  women  equality  with  men,  but  "  Christianity," 
says  Sir  Henry  Maine,  "  tended  from  the  very  first 
to  narrow  this  remarkable  liberty.  The  systems 
which  are  least  indulgent  to  women  are  invariably 
those  which  have  followed  the  Canon  law  exclusively. ' ' 
And  Mr.  Lecky  adds,  "  "Wherever  the  Canon  law  has 
been  the  basis  of  legislation  we  find  laws  of  suc- 
cession sacrificing  the  interests  of  wives  anJ 
daughters  and  a  state  of  public  opinion  which  has 
been  formulated  and  regulated  by  these  laws." 

After  all  these  decisions  of  the  Councils — by  the 
eminent  fathers  of  the  church — decisions,  which  in 

206 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

reality  do  not  debase  woman  but  rather  expose  the 
egoism,  vanity,  and  degradation  of  man — on  turning 
to  the  teachings  of  Christ  as  told  in  the  Gospels  we 
get  into  an  entirely  different  atmosphere.  Of  hus- 
band and  wife  He  said,  ''And  they  twain  shall  be  one 
flesh,  wherefore,  they  are  no  more  twain  but  one 
flesh."  Christ  not  only  stated  their  equality  but  He 
reiterated  it,  that  there  might  be  no  mistake  about  it. 
Let  us  set  Blackstone's  legal  decree  in  apposition 
with  Christ's,  and  see  how  the  one  bears  out  the  other. 
"  The  husband  and  wife  are  one,  and  that  one  is  the 
husband."  Like  Paul  he  was  able  to  improve  on  the 
Christ  statement.     Man  always  is. 

On  another  point  of  the  gravest  importance  to  the 
human  family  was  Christ's  teaching  in  diametrical 
opposition  to  man's,  namely,  the  equality  of  both 
before  the  law.  As  M'e  have  seen,  the  laws  of  every 
land  condemn  woman  to  bear  the  burden  of  man's  un- 
governed  appetite.  But  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  we  read :  ' '  Jesus  went  into  the 
Mount  of  Olives.  And  early  in  the  morning  He  came 
again  into  the  temple,  and  all  the  people  came  unto 
Him;  and  He  sat  down  and  taught  them.  And  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  brought  unto  Him  a  woman 
taken  in  adultery;  and  when  they  had  set  her  in  the 
midst  they  say  unto  Him :  jMaster  this  woman  was 
taken  in  adultery ;  in  the  very  act.  Now  Moses  in  the 
law  commanded  us,  that  such  be  stoned ;  but  what 

207 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

sayest  Thou  ?  This  they  said  tempting  Him  that  they 
might  have  to  accuse  Him.  But  Jesus  stooped  down 
and  with  His  finger  wrote  on  the  ground  as  though 
He  heard  them  not.  So  when  they  continued  asking 
Him,  He  lifted  up  Himself  and  said  unto  them;  He 
that  is  without  sin  among  you  let  him  first  cast  a  stone 
at  her.  And  again  He  stooped  down  and  wrote  on  the 
ground.  And  they  which  heard  it,  being  convicted 
by  their  own  conscience,  went  out  one  by  one,  begin- 
ning at  the  eldest,  even  unto  the  last;  and  Jesus  was 
left  alone,  and  the  woman  standing  in  the  midst. 
And  when  Jesus  had  lifted  up  Himself  and  saw  none 
but  the  woman  He  said  unto  her.  Woman,  where  are 
those  thine  accusers?  hath  no  man  condemned  thee? 
She  said.  No  man,  Lord.  And  Jesus  said  unto  her, 
Neither  do  I  condemn  thee,  go,  and  sin  no  more." 

Nothing  could  be  more  unmistakably  clear  than 
this  legal  decision  of  the  Christ,  that  man  should  not 
condemn  woman  for  a  wrong  that  he  was  not  held 
equally  accountable  for.  Did  those  social  cowards 
bring  the  man  to  judgment,  who,  to  say  the  least, 
was  equally  guilty  with  her?  No.  But  when  con- 
fronted with  their  own  guilt  by  the  Divine  Seer, 
they  slunk  away,  old  and  young,  one  and  all.  Has 
the  church,  with  one  accord  raised  its  voice  and 
maintained  it,  till  the  secular  law  had  to  take  cogni- 
sance of  the  protest  against  the  travesty  of  the  divine 
teachings?     No.     The  church  as  an  institution  has, 

208 


MAN  A  SOCIAL  COWARD 

and  is  to-day,  subordinating  the  clear  teaching  of 
Christ  to  the  secular  law.  It  inculcates  Paul's  obey 
and  submission  and  Christ's  when  they  do  not  clash 
with  man's  usurped  authority.  Its  preachers  too 
often  enter  their  pulpits  with  stones  to  fling  at 
women  wholesale,  and  then  use  the  daily  papers  lest 
all  should  not  hear  them. 

To  those  who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  laws  of  the 
remote  or  even  immediate  past,  or  for  that  matter  of 
the  present,  it  will  be  a  surprise  to  learn  how  man, 
the  lord  of  creation,  the  superior  being,  the  muscular 
sex,  has  felt  called  upon  to  protect  himself  by  law 
from  all  conceivable  contingencies  against  the  weaker, 
the  fundamentally  inferior  sex^  We  see  now  that  all 
his  protection  of  woman  was,  and  is  in  reality,  pro- 
tection of  himself.  JWhat^does  this  arguej  There  is 
no  effect  without  a  cause.  On  the  face  of  it  there  is 
no  apparent  reason  for  this  exceeding  care.  It  is  a 
contradiction  of  all  his  claims  to  superiority  and  of 
woman's  inferiority.  Whence  comes  it?  It  is  the 
fact  of  his  biological  inferiority  proclaimed  by  him- 
self through  his  laws.  It  is  an  acknowledgement  by 
him  of  woman's  superiority.  It  is  the  voice  of  the 
Divine,  using  man  to  his  own  undoing  for  He  said, 
"  Vengeance  is  mine,  I  will  repay,"  and  ever  since 
man  has  been  able  to  leave  a  record  he  has  been  com- 
pelled to  write  himself  down  in  emblazoned  letters: 
Social  Coward. 

14  209 


VI 

WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

We  have  seen  what  the  nature  of  the  female  was 
as  she  came  from  the  hands  of  the  Great  First  Cause 
endowed  for  the  work  of  sub-creator.  We  have  seen 
that  those  endowments  were  simple  but  all-sufficient 
for  the  mighty  task  of  bringing  the  race  upwards  and 
onwards  through  the  various  stages  of  evolution, — 
a  love  of  the  beautiful,  not  for  her  own  adornment, 
but  for  that  of  others;  the  right  of  selection,  which 
was  a  manifestation  of  the  love  of  the  beautiful;  in- 
defatigable industry  as  the  sole  provider  of  the  fam- 
ily and  a  pacific  temperament  which  held  rigidly 
the  balance  of  power  between  the  fighting  males. 

We  have  seen  her  organising  the  new-born  species, 
bringing  order  out  of  chaos,  forming  the  horde  into 
gens  and  laying  the  foundation  of  a  state  of  society 
which  was  sufficient  for  its  needs  till  the  historical 
period  was  reached  though  long  before  that  time  she 
had  lost  her  right  of  rulership.  During  all  that  time 
woman's  development  went  on  uninterruptedly  as 
well  as  man's  for  the  legends  of  Amazonism  reveal 
her  as  capable  in  the  realm  of  the  moral  and  physical 
to  dare  and  to  do  anything  that  the  exigencies  of  life 
might  call  for.  The  Amazons  and  the  women  of  the 
early   Homeric  legends   represent  a  type   who  were 

210 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

almost  the  physical  equals  of  men — the  type  of  the 
Venus  de  Milo,  tall,  large,  and  well-proportioned — 
for  though  by  continual  selection  the  male  had  be- 
come over  developed  and  man,  by  his  mode  of  life  had 
maintained  his  advantage,  yet  woman  could  not  have 
fallen  far  behind  for  all  the  work  that  is  now  largely 
done  by  man  was  then  done  by  her. 

We  have  read,  too,  between  the  lines  and  noted  the 
characteristic  difference  between  woman  and  man, 
her  greater  generosity  in  her  days  of  power  than  his, 
when  he  usurped  her  place.  So  long  and  wherever 
descent  was  in  the  female  line  woman  was  the  ruler, 
yet,  though  this  was  the  case  among  the  majority  of 
the  Indian  tribes  when  America  was  discovered,  we 
see  men  appointed  sachems  and  chiefs,  but  by  her 
suffrance  and  through  her  nomination,  with  the  re- 
served right,  if  their  conduct  fell  below  her  standard 
of  what  was  just  and  proper,  to  "  knock  off  their 
horns  "  and  send  them  back  to  the  ranks.  The 
natural  woman  had  no  lust  of  power;  that  is  one  of 
the  distinguishing  features  of  usurpation.  The  in- 
dividual who  is  bom  to  power  accepts  it  as  a  natural 
birthright,  and  is  not  conscious  of  the  personal 
element,  but  acquired  power  needs  a  long  period  of 
training  before  it  can  attain  the  natural  and  easy 
grace  of  biological  endowment  and  wield  it  with 
firmness  and  moderation  and  without  egotism. 

211 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

So  much  for  the  woman  that  God  made.  Now  let 
us  look  at  the  marred  and  despoiled  creature  of  man's 
hands.  We  have  seen  that  in  everything  man 
puts  his  hand  to  he  has  sought  to  improve  on  the 
work  of  the  Almighty.  There  has  always  been  a 
leader  among  them,  whom  the  rest  slavishly  followed, 
who  knew  better,  and  who  travestied,  interpolated, 
enlarged  upon,  and  transformed  the  divine  decree 
till  it  was  wrought  into  shape  to  suit  "  His  image," 
a  Paul  of  the  Epistles,  of  legal  mind,  the  one  who 
followed  after  and  moulded  and  pruned  the  divine 
doctrine  to  the  ideas  of  earthly  man. 

As  soon  as  man's  dominance  began  to  be  felt,  the 
moral  tone  of  woman  slowly  but  surely  lowered.  The 
degenerating  process  went  on,  doubtless  imperceptibly 
at  first,  but  in  time  it  became  cumulative  and  people, 
in  all  probability,  said  then  as  they  have  been  saying 
ever  since,  that  society  had  entered  upon  evil  times. 
This  was  true  then  and  it  must  have  continued  to  be 
true  for  many  centuries,  for  all  the  evil  that  was 
heaped  upon  woman  resulted  in  her  reaching  almost 
the  same  unmoral  and  inhuman  level  as  man  himself, 
or  as  nearly  so  as  a  being  could  who  shared  in  God's 
divinity  of  love.  The  early  Homeric  period  shows 
her  on  the  downward  scale.  The  later  historical  pe- 
riod, probably  six  or  eight  hundred  years  after,  shows 
the  completion  of  her  degradation. 

212 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

But  this  change  was  completed  in  the  Orient  long 
before  this,  for  it  was  an  accomplished  fact  at  the 
time  Manu's  Code  was  written,  and  the  date  of  this 
is  approximately  given  as  900  b.c.  It  is  almost  in- 
conceivable to  us  how  much  more  slowly  changes  were 
effected  in  those  days.  But  it  must  often  have  hap- 
pened that  one  quarter  of  the  globe  had  entered  and 
completed  a  social  phase  of  long  duration,  while 
another  was  still  in  a  preceding  phase.  There  is 
ample  evidence  of  this  when  it  is  remembered  that 
the  putting  to  death  of  infant  children  is  not  uncom- 
mon among  the  natives  of  Alaska,  while  the  men  of 
Australia  and  other  parts  of  the  globe  still  obtain 
wives  by  capture. 

The  destruction,  however,  of  woman's  moral  qual- 
ities was  not  easily  or  readily  brought  about,  for  the 
two  pictures  are  still  presented,  or  were  only  a  few 
years  ago,  of  the  chief  women  of  the  gens  adopting 
the  captured  women  and  children  into  it  on  equal 
terms,  and  the  opposite  picture  of  woman  abusing 
her  sister.  The  capture  of  women,  for—wives,  con- 
cubines and  slaves  was  one  of  the  first  manifestations 
of  her  loss  of  control  over  man,  and  when  she  helped 
to  abuse  the  captive,  she  testified  to  her  own  loss  of 
moral  perception.  Among  the  first  records  we  have 
of  her  lapse  from  the  ethical  law  she  herself  made, 
is  this  change  in  her  treatment  of  her  captured  sister, 

213 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

when  capture  became  universal.  Part  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  unfortunate  was  due  to  the  harsh  con- 
duet  of  the  women  of  the  household  into  which  she 
was  brought.  She  was  regarded  as  an  unwarranted 
intruder  and  the  wrongdoing  of  her  captor  was 
visited  on  her. 

We  can  almost  follow  the  mental  processes,  step 
by  step,  by  which  this  occurred.  When  capture  was 
occasional  it  was  regarded  with  horror,  and  the  in- 
herent desire  of  the  female  led  her  to  stretch  out 
her  arms  at  once  to  rescue  the  unfortunate.  The 
unsullied,  unmarred  mind  of  woman,  as  it  came  from 
the  hand  of  the  Creator,  had  no  sentiments  of  jeal- 
ousy, malice  or  revenge  registered  on  its  brain  cells. 
There  had  been  nothing  in  the  experience  of  life  to 
awaken  such  feelings.  Man's  place  was  secondary 
in  the  organic  scheme.  All  he  got  came  from  her 
hands.  She  was  the  governing  factor,  the  economic 
factor,  and  the  gratification  of  other  appetites  and 
desires  were  hef  gifts  to  bestow  and  not  his  to 
command. 

She  would  therefore  take  in  her  captured  sister, 
without  the  slightest  thought  of  her  own  position  be- 
ing endangered.  It  was  as  natural  and  spontaneous 
for  her  to  soothe  and  bind  and  heal,  as  it  was  for 
her  progenitors  in  the  animal  world,  for  a  female  ant 
has  been  seen,  when  another  was  in  pain  from  an 

214 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

injury,  to  apply  a  secretion  from  her  own  mouth  to 
the  wound,  which  instantly  gave  relief  to  the  suf- 
ferer, just  as  a  nurse  to-day  would  apply  an  oint- 
ment. But  in  proportion  as  capture  became  general, 
the  plastic  mind  became  used  to  it  and  ceased  to 
register  horror,  but  registered  instead  the  accustomed, 
for  nothing  is  more  true  than  Pope's  remark,  that 

"  Vice  is  a  monster  of  so  frightful  mien. 
As  to  be  hated,  needs  but  to  be  seen; 
But  seen   too  oft,   familiar  with  her  face, 
We   first   endure,   then   pity,    then   embrace." 

Just  as  the  mind  became  so  accustomed  to  the  new 
order  that  it  ceased  to  regard  it  with  indignation, 
just  to  that  extent  it  registered  the  new  order  on  the 
psychic  nature,  for  whatever  happens  on  the  physical 
plane  is  repeated  on  the  mental  plane  and  also  on 
the  spiritual  plane.  This  is  the  law  of  unity  that 
runs  throughout  life  and  binds  all  its  parts  to- 
gether, and  links  time  with  eternity,  for  spirit  is 
eternal.  Man  then  dominated,  first  the  phj^sical 
plane  by  physical  force,  then  the  mental  plane  by 
the  submergence  of  woman's  natural  instincts,  till 
they  became  so  blunted  by  suffering  endured,  and 
by  seeing  nothing  but  suffering  inflicted,  that  they 
accepted  it  as  the  natural  law  of  life,  and  when  that 
point  was  reached,  then  the  spiritual  plane  was  in- 

215 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

volved  in  ruin,  for  love  lay  bleeding  in  the  dust, 
torn,  dissevered,  and  so  nearly  annihilated  that 
woman  became  almost  unsexed. 

This  mental,  moral  and  spiritual  loss  is  plainly 
evident  in  the  change  that  took  place  in  the  ethical 
law  of  the  gens  to  which  woman  herself  contributed 
and  which  has  ever  since  marked  the  attitude  of 
woman  to  woman.  Long  ages  of  maltreatment  had 
left  its  mark.  This  mental  process  of  degeneracy 
exactly  measures  the  period  of  time  when  man  began 
to  assert  himself,  till  the  time  it  was  so  accomplished 
a  fact,  that  the  earlier  halcyon  period  was  forgotten. 
Man  had  now  become  the  chief  factor,  the  first  in 
a  reversed  organic  scheme,  and  with  his  monopolistic 
tendencies,  not  only  the  plwsical  being  of  woman, 
but  every  faculty  of  mind  and  spirit  had  to  be 
yielded  up  to  him.  Henceforth  she  ceased  to  bear  the 
impress  of  her  Maker,  and  had  stamped  upon  her 
the  impress  of  man. 

And  what  was  the  psychological  result  of  this 
stamp?  Among  the  Australians  capture  is  so  fre- 
quently practised  and  the  children  have  become  so 
familiar  with  it  that  without  any  understanding 
of  what  its  import  is,  they  make  it  a  game  of  play. 
Thus  the  child  who  is  so  familiarised  with  brutal 
scenes  as  to  amuse  itself  with  simulating  them 
would  see  nothing  wrong  in  later  years  in  adding  to 

216 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

the  sum  of  misery.  Indeed,  so  responsive  are  human 
beings  to  the  influences  that  surround  them  that  it 
is  recorded  that  the  prisoners,  during  the  reign  of 
terror  in  the  French  Revolution,  amused  themselves 
by  rehearsing  for  their  own  execution.  That  period 
was  only  a  matter  of  ninety  days,  but  who  shall  count 
the   centuries   of  woman's  oppression? 

As  woman  sank  lower  and  lower  in  man's  estima- 
tion and  consequently  in  her  own,  the  sex  became  so 
despised  and  so  self-despising  that  the  birth  of 
daughters  was  regarded  as  a  curse,  and  female  in- 
fanticide became  as  universal  as  wife  capture  and 
wife  purchase,  and  mothers  also  as  well  as  fathers 
did  not  hesitate  to  put  their  female  babies  to  death, 
for  travellers  have  told  of  having  visited  tribes  in 
which  every  woman's  hands  were  imbrued  in  the 
blood  of  the  innocents.  It  is  almost  a  logical  infer- 
ence that  from  such  a  mental  attitude  towards  her 
own  sex  such  a  result  would  follow. 

But  the  mere  statement  that  such  was  a  fact  leads, 
as  it  was  intended  to  do  by  those  who  recorded  it,  to 
the  conclusion  that  savage  woman  was  quite  as  cruel 
as  savage  man,  and,  therefore,  love  for  the 
young  in  the  human  family  is  an  acquired  and  not  a 
native  instinct.  Carried  to  its  logical  antecedent, 
this  means  that  the  Creator  lavished  His  best  on  the 
animal  world,  to  the  neglect  of  the  human.     Thus  the 

317 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

blind  become  leaders  of  the  blind,  for  false  premises 
lead  to  false  conclusions. 

There  have  been,  and  are,  individual  cases  in  which 
woman  has  practised  great  cruelty,  and  there  may 
even  have  been  savage  tribes  in  which  the  women, 
because  of  some  special  experience  in  the  course  of 
their  tribal  life,  had  altogether  lost  all  sentiments  of 
compassion,  so  that  even  the  sources  of  maternal  love 
had  dried  up  and  failed  in  consequence,  but  it  is 
wholly  impossible  that  woman  as  a  sex  would  volun- 
tarily raise  her  hand  to  take  the  life  of  her  child 
without  some  strong  impelling  cause.  Even  the  low- 
est state  of  depravity  or  of  psychological  dominance 
by  man  would  not  account  for  it,  except  very 
occasionally,  and  there  are  well  authenticated  cases 
in  which  mothers  tried  to  save  children  from  their 
fathers. 

A  great  light  is  thrown  on  the  working  of  the 
savage  woman's  mind  by  a  friend  of  the  writer,  who 
spent  some  time  in  Alaska  four  years  ago.  Miss  C. 
who  is  a  professional  nurse  visited  the  natives  fre- 
quently and  got  an  insight  into  their  lives  and  their 
mode  of  thinking.  On  one  occasion  a  wee  Indian 
girl  was  playing  on  the  floor  of  the  hut,  and  Miss  C 
made  friendly  advances  to  tJ^e  child.  The  Indian 
mother  watched  for  a  time,  then  addressing  her  in 
broken  English  said,  "  me  know  God  now  me  no  kill 
that  one." 

218 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

Horrified  at  the  statement  and  scarcely  believing 
that  she  heard  aright,  amazed,  too,  at  the  moral  con- 
dition that  allowed  any  human  being  to  make  such 
a  confession,  Miss  C.  questioned  the  woman  closely 
and  elicited  her  reason.  She  said  that  she  had  killed 
two  young  daughters  by  taking  them  to  a  hill-side 
and  stuffing  their  mouths  with  dried  grass,  because 
she  could  not  bear  to  see  them  grow  up  and  live  the 
life  of  abuse  that  she  and  her  sister  squaws  did,  and 
she  closed  her  tale  as  she  began,  but  "  me  know  God 
now,  me  no  kill  that  one."  Miss  C.  added  that  they 
were  veritable  beasts  of  burden,  that  their  lives  were 
inexpressibly  horrible,  that  the  men  were  hideous  vic- 
tims of  venereal  diseases,  and  that,  in  truth,  there 
was  more  of  mercy  than  of  cruelty  in  her  act. 
Probably  this  was  the  point  of  view  of  her  savage 
and  half-savage  foremothers. 

The  psychological  dominance  of  man  over  woman, 
in  those  eastern  lands  where  it  is  at  its  height,  alone 
accounts  for  great  misery,  and  affords  a  living  pic- 
ture of  how  terrible  is  woman's  fall  from  grace,  and 
what  a  place  of  torment  life  is,  where  woman  is 
debased  and  without  influence  over  man.  In  India, 
the  childless  widow  suffers  tortures  at  the  hands  of 
her  female  relatives.  She  is  regarded  as  the  blackest 
criminal  and  as  accursed  and  even  the  children  are 
taught  to  scorn  her.  Among  the  Brahmans  of  the 
Deecan  her  head  must  be  shaved  fortnightly,  and  as 

219 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

they  value  their  hair  above  all  else,  thousands  of 
girls  keep  in  the  dark  to  hide  their  shame,  and 
spend  weary  days  and  years  in  tears,  stripped  of 
every  bit  of  bright  clothing  and  ornament,  and 
allowed  only  one  meal  a  day  of  the  poorest  food,  and 
one  gown  of  the  coarsest  material. 

The  moment  a  husband  dies,  women  whose  business 
it  is — the  wives  of  barbers — and  who  are  in  waiting 
pounce  upon  the  widow  and  tear  off  all  her  orna- 
ments, often  pulling  the  flesh  with  them  in  their 
brutal  haste,  and  not  uncommonly  they  hammer  the 
bracelets  on  their  arms  till  the  metal  breaks.  She 
is  compelled  t«  follow  the  funeral  procession  afar 
off,  while  one  of  these  women  precedes  her,  warning 
the  people  to  flee  from  the  accursed  being,  for  the 
superstitious  belief  is,  that  it  is  an  omen  of  ill-luck 
to  cross  her  path.  Arrived  at  the  water's  edge  where 
the  husband's  body  is  to  be  cremated,  she  is  thrown 
into  the  river  and  kept  there  till  the  body  is  burnt 
and  the  company  have  bathed  and  washed  their 
clothes.  Then  she  is  taken  back  home,  and  a  life  of 
abuse  begins,  even  her  own  mother  often  reviling  her 
and  bemoaning  the  fact  that  she  is  the  mother  of  such 
a  guilty  sin-stained  wretch. 

These  women  have  lost  all  sympathy,  they  are  so 
victimised  by  teaching  and  a  belief  in  their  own 
inferiority  that   they   lend   themselves   to   their   own 

220 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

degradation.  In  a  census  taken  a  few  years  ago 
there  were  upwards  of  40,000  widows  under  ten  years 
of  age  in  one  province  alone.  Happily  under  English 
rule  the  marriage  of  girls  under  twelve  years  of  age 
has  been  forbidden. 

Writers  and  sympathisers  with  India  for  her  sub- 
ject condition,  for  which  the  misgovernment  by  her 
men  alone  is  responsible,  have  expatiated  on  the  high 
attainments  of  cultivated  Indian  men,  but  the 
proverbs  of  those  men  represent  women,  their 
mothers,  sisters,  wives  and  daughters,  "  as  more 
poisonous  than  the  poison  of  vipers,"  and  ask, 
"  What  poison  is  that  which  appears  like  nectar?" 
"Woman."  ''What  is  the  chief  gate  to  hell?" 
"  Woman."  "  What  is  cruel?"  "  The  heart  of  a 
viper."  "  What  is  more  cruel?"  "The  heart  of  a 
woman."  What  is  most  cruel  of  all?"  "The  heart 
of  a  soulless  penniless  widow."  "  He  is  a  fool  who 
considers  his  wife  as  his  friend."  "  Educating  a 
woman  is  like  putting  a  knife  in  the  hands  of  a 
monkey." 

With  such  an  attitude  towards  woman,  it  is  much 
more  than  probable  that  the  moment  the  last  British 
soldier  put  his  foot  on  the  gangway  of  the  vessel  that 
was  to  carry  him  back  to  England,  Suttee  would 
be  in  full  force  again.  In  China  where  there  is  no 
overlordship  blind  daughters,  even  though  bom  so, 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

are  turned  out  at  twelve  to  shift  for  themselves, 
which  too  often  means  to  become  a  prey  to  the  lust 
of  man,  and  the  feet  of  girls  are  distorted  at  terrible 
suffering  to  the  unfortunate  victims  to  satisfy  man's 
love  of  the  beautiful. 

The  psychological  result  of  wife  capture  had  sev- 
eral expressions.  It  made  woman  almost  as  inhuman 
as  man,  it  was  a  powerful  factor  in  leading  her  to 
take  the  life  of  her  infant  girl,  and  it  led  her,  when 
the  men  of  her  tribe  were  worsted  in  battle,  to  put 
all  her  children  to  death  and  then  to  take  her  own 
life  rather  than  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  soldiery. 
History  records  this  as  having  happened  even  as  late 
as  the  Gallic-Roman  wars.  But  not  only  had  woman 
to  fear  the  men  of  neighbouring  tribes  but  also  their 
own  husbands.  We  need  not  refer  again  to  the 
biologists  to  learn  that  she  was  punished  unmerci- 
fully by  them  but  only  recall  the  laws  given  in  the 
last  chapter  to  realise  that  even  until  late  years  a 
large  number  of  women  passed  their  whole  life  in 
fear  of  bodily  injury,  and  that  the  largest  number  are 
still  living  in  that  mental  state,  for  Mahommedan 
men  are  notoriously  brutal. 

The  physical  result  of  this  was  the  development  of 
an  undue  nervous  organisation,  which  has  character- 
ised her  ever  since  and  which  has  caused  untold 
suffering   to   the   human    family.      Physicians    alone 

222 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

know  what  proportion  of  the  ills  of  humanity  are 
directly  chargeable  to  this  cause,  and  how  the  treat- 
ment of  all  disease  is  more  or  less  complicated  by  it. 
But  this  was  not  a  natural  endowment,  for  the  placid 
female  in  the  animal  world,  who  continued  to  attend 
to  her  business  of  boring,  unmoved  and  apparently 
unconscious,  while  two  males  were  fighting  about  her 
at  her  side,  was  not  the  victim  of  nerves,  for  if  either 
of  them  had  attempted  to  approach  her  against  her 
will,  one  look  from  her  and  he  would  have  slunk 
guiltily  away ;  neither,  we  may  be  sure,  w^as  the  peace 
of  the  matriarchate  disturbed  by  nervous  break- 
downs. The  Creator  did  not  make  a  diseased  being 
to  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth,  for  we  are  told 
that  "  God  saw  everything  that  lie  had  made,  and, 
behold,  it  was  very  good." 

The  establishment  of  patriarchy  did  not  mean  that 
man  undertook  to  do  the  work.  Such  an  idea  never 
crossed  his  mind,  so  her  burden  of  toil  was  not  re- 
moved. The  evil,  however,  did  not  lie  in  the  work, 
for  she  did  that  in  obedience  to  a  natural  instinct. 
She  had  done  it  from  the  beginning  without  com- 
pulsion, because  her  native  tendency  was  construc- 
tive, but  it  lay  in  the  altered  circumstances  under 
which  she  did  it;  "  half -fed,  half-clad,  over- worked, 
a  beast  of  burden,  a  domestic  animal,  slave,  a  minor, 
held   aloof   from   a   free  life   and   often    maltreated, 

223 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

oppressed,  punished  with  fury  for  acts  that  her  male 
owner  would  commit  with  impunity  before  her  eyes." 

Work  in  itself  is  not  degrading,  and  if  done  with 
a  mind  and  spirit  as  free  as  the  body,  with  sufficient 
food  and  proper  intervals  of  rest,  it  is  developing, 
particularly  if  done  in  the  sunshine  and  air,  but  as 
far  as  possible  these  fortuitous  conditions  were  denied 
to  her.  If  there  was  any  scarcity  of  food,  woman  had 
to  go  without  and  she  was  in  many  eases  forbidden 
to  eat  meat.  All  through  the  Orient,  European  Tur- 
key and  Mahommedan  Africa  they  are  only  allowed 
to  eat  what  the  men  leave.  "The  dogs  may  eat  of  the 
crumbs  that  fall  from  the  master's  table."  They  are 
forbidden  in  India  to  taste  anything  till  it  has  first 
been  offered  to  a  man,  and  to  make  sure  that  they 
take  none  on  the  sly,  religion  is  made  use  of  to  in- 
culcate superstitious  fears  of  dire  consequences 
should  they  violate  this  cardinal  law  and  by  touching 
the  "  forbidden  fruit  "  attempt  to  make  themselves 
equal  to  the  gods.  In  Europe  till  well  on  into  the 
historical  period  the  condition  was  much  the  same, 
for,  according  to  some  authorities  it  was  not  till  the 
tenth  century,  that  she  was  allowed  to  sit  at  the  table 
with  her  husband. 

The  confinement  to  dark,  cheerless  rooms,  or  at 
best  to  a  court  which  they  shared  with  the  domestic 
animals    with    whom    they    were    classed,    breathing 

224 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

filthy,  noisome  air,  could  only  result  in  a  degenerate 
physique.  Stunted  growth  was  the  direct  conse- 
quence. Men  are  constantly  writing  articles  holding 
up  the  ancient  Greek  women  as  models  and  laying 
the  blame  for  the  altered  size  on  the  way  the  modern 
woman  garbs  herself.  But  the  truth  lies  deeper  than 
that,  and  lies  too  at  his  door.  They  do  not  realise 
that  those  models  were  matriarchal  women,  and  were 
therefore  a  law  unto  themselves,  and  that  therein  lies 
the  cause. 

The  visitor  to  the  British  Islands  is  struck  with 
the  extremes  of  type  which  meet  her  everywhere,  the 
very  tall  and  the  exceedingly  short.  A  keen 
observer  who  had  been  absent  from  his  native 
land  for  twenty-five  years,  remarked  on  his 
return  that  nothing  struck  him  so  much  as  the  alter- 
ation in  the  height  of  the  women.  This  is  due  to 
the  greater  freedom  that  they  enjoy  and  to  their 
improved  condition  generally  during  the  past  fifty 
years.  Nature  herself  is  so  careful  of  the  female  that 
she  results  only  from  the  best  pre-natal  conditions, 
on  the  principle  that  from  whom  much  is  required, 
much  is  given.  But  nature  was  superseded  in  the 
human  world  by  one  who  thought  himself  wiser  than 
she,  and  everything,  maternity,  unceasing  toil  under 
abuse  were  demanded  from  the  one  to  whom  least 
was  given. 

15  225 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

The  reasons  stated  by  men  throughout  the  East  for 
the  laying  of  all  the  heavy  work  on  woman,  all  the 
work  that  cannot  be  done  by  the  bullock  or  the  mule, 
for  he  reserves  that  for  himself,  are,  that  having 
caused  the  Fall  of  man,  she  must  expiate  it  by  suffer- 
ing, or  having  been  bought  she  must  work.  It  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  man  should,  in  time,  under 
such  teaching,  have  inherited  a  deep-seated  belief  in 
the  fundamental  inferiority  of  woman.  Since 
humanity,  with  very  few  exceptions,  is  at  the  present 
day  in  total  ignorance  of  the  past  history  of  the 
human  family,  what  could  be  expected  of  by-gone 
ages  ? 

Hundreds  of  generations  were  born  into  a  social 
condition  in  which  women  were  bought  and  sold 
and  their  price  regulated  as  any  other  article  of 
commerce:  by  the  law  of  supply  and  demand;  by 
physical  beauty,  just  as  a  carriage  horse  is  chosen; 
or  by  their  working  ability.  All  knowledge  of  how 
this  came  about  was  lost,  and  the  natural  inference 
was  that  she  was  only  an  animal  made  for  the  con- 
venience and  service  of  man.  The  large  majority  of 
people  in  all  ages  accept  things  as  they  find  them, 
wnthout  thinking  about  them  at  all,  and  in  the  case  of 
such  an  egoist  as  man,  this  creed  was  especially 
acceptable  and  would  be  insistently  inculcated. 

On  the   other  hand  woman's  spirit  had  been  so 

226 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

completely  broken  by  abuse,  she  bore  her  position  so 
meekly  and  with  such  long  enduring  passivity,  and 
she  acquiesced  so  entirely  in  man's  belief  in  his 
right  to  be  considered  first  in  all  things,  that  she 
helped  to  foster  in  him  the  spirit  of  injustice,  and 
to  perpetuate  and  accent  his  creed  of  her  funda- 
mental incapacity.  Moreover,  an  appeal  to  nature 
as  she  was  superficially  observed,  powerfully  assisted 
in  rendering  man's  vantage  ground  invulnerable. 
Everywhere  he  saw  the  female  plain  and  modest  in 
appearance,  unobtrusive,  passive,  silent,  uttering 
neither  song  nor  chirp,  but  plodding  steadily  along, 
and  bearing  all  the  cares  of  life  and  the  family. 
But  the  male  was  beautiful  to  look  upon,  commanding 
in  size,  masterful,  aggressive,  quarrelsome,  the  one 
who  did  nothing  and  who  to  this  extent  dominated 
the  situation,  and  was,  therefore,  the  superior. 

From  external  appearances,  the  conclusion  was 
almost  irresistible,  that  this  was  the  pre-ordained 
order,  and  that  the  female  was  merely  made  to  be  of 
service  to  the  male.  With  this  as  a  basal  creed,  man 
stamped  it  on  everything  he  did  and  said.  His  whole 
endowment  for  life  was  selfish,  and  as  rationalism 
developed,  those  mental  attributes  which  served  sel- 
iish  ends  filled  his  horizon.  He  was  the  master 
creature,  and  all  the  advantages  that  life  could  be 
made  to  afford  belonged  exclusively  to  him,  and  to 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

whatever  extent  woman  could  be  made  to  contribute 
to  the  securing  of  those  advantages,  it  was  plainly 
his  duty  to  himself,  as  well  as  a  privilege  conferred 
on  him  by  a  wise  Creator,  to  force  them  from  her. 

She  was  his  ox,  his  ass,  his  anything  and  his  every- 
thing, and  the  very  fact  that  she  was  so  much  more 
liberally  endowed  than  he  with  resourcefulness, 
with  capacities  to  serve,  to  initiate,  to  turn  her  hand 
to  anything  that  a  human  being  can  do,  for  in  spite 
of  man's  monopoly  of  all  training  the  untrained 
woman  of  to-day  can  do  a  dozen  things  equally  as 
well  as  most  men  can  do  the  one  thing  to  which  they 
devote  themselves — served  him  with  the  strongest 
possible  argument  of  her  servanthood,  and  conse- 
quently his  right  to  enslave  her,  and  if  she  did  not 
meet  his  requirements  to  use  force  to  make  her,  for 
was  he  not  given  special  equipment  in  his  muscular 
superiority  for  this  express  purpose? 

If  these  arguments  were  irresistible  to  man,  they 
were  wholly  irrefutable  to  woman.  The  facts  were 
against  her,  her  own  virtues  were  against  her,  her 
physical  being  was  against  her,  and  at  length  her 
mental  being  was  dominated  by  them  and  she  suc- 
cumbed. Doubtless  during  the  transition  period  from 
matriarchy  to  patriarchy  she  resisted  the  accept- 
ance of  these  arguments  as  forcibly  as  she  could. 
Whatever  counter-arguments  she  had  to  oppose  them 

228 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

with  she  had  at  that  time,  for  she  had  the  accom- 
plished results  of  her  ability  to  fall  back  upon. 

But  as  this  period  receded — and  the  tendency  of 
human  beings  to  let  a  dead  past  slip  out  of  memory, 
as  if  it  had  no  bearing  whatsoever  on  the  future,  is 
marvellous — her  arguments  grew  weaker;  moreover 
muscle  has  a  summary  way  of  dealing  with  argument. 
Finally  a  generation  of  men  was  born  on  whose 
brain  cells  no  trace  of  restraint  was  recorded  and  a 
generation  of  women  on  whose  brain  cells  complete 
subjection  to  man  was  impressed. 

The  change  was  not  merely  the  result  of  muscle, 
it  was  a  mental  process  which  went  on  equally  in 
woman  and  man.  She  was  never  subjected  till  she 
was  psychologically  dominated ;  he  was  never  master 
till  he  had  lost  all  belief  in  woman  as  a  human  being 
on  equal  terms  with  himself.  Once  this  happened  the 
way  to  man's  ascendancy  was  open.  All  resistance 
from  woman  was  then  at  an  end,  while  man  true  to 
his  instincts  and  filled  with  a  transcendent  concep- 
tion of  his  own  importance,  the  more  absorbing  be- 
cause it  was  based  on  the  untrue,  seized  upon  woman 
as  the  slavish  auxiliary,  the  scaffolding  on  which  he 
planted  his  feet  to  obtain  heights  that  he  never  could 
have  reached  without  that  palpitating,  long-suffering, 
path-finding    support   and    guide. 

The  Darwinian  theory  of  the  descent  of  man  was 
229 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

not  the  first  to  base  the  order  of  life  on  an  analogy 
to  the  animal  world,  though  this  has  been  assumed 
by  those  who  would  refute  it.  So  long  as  the  male 
was  obviously  in  the  ascendant,  and  there  seemed  to 
be  no  possibility  of  shaking  the  foundations  on  which 
his  priority  rested,  the  unity  in  the  organic  scheme 
was  proudly  pointed  out,  and  is  used  as  an  argument 
yet  by  those  who  do  not  know  how  powerful  a  weapon 
they  are  evoking  in  contradiction.  But  it  is  worthy 
of  note  in  passing,  that  the  two  theories  so  diametri- 
cally opposed  to  one  another  are  both  based  on 
biology.  It  is  a  striking  illustration  of  how  important 
it  is  that  the  basic  premises  should  be  right,  since 
conclusions  so  widely  divergent  can  result  from  the 
same  parent  stock.  The  main  difference  between  the 
two  theories  is  that  in  the  false  one  there  are  tremen- 
dous gaps  which  cannot  be  bridged  over,  while  in  the 
other,  the  links  in  the  chain  of  evidence  are  unbroken 
and  of  equal  strength. 

Moreover  the  false  one  was  not  sufficient  unto  it- 
self, but  had  to  reinforce  itself  by  all  conceivable 
imaginings,  that  tended  powerfully  to  debase  woman 
in  her  own  esteem,  for  this  was  the  central  pivot  on 
which  male  superiority  continued  or  fell,  so  it  was 
decreed  that  an  Eternal  God  recognised  man  only; 
that  he  was  the  crowning  glory  of  His  creative  work ; 
the   reflex   of  His  image;   that   God,   therefore,   was 

330 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

masculine,  and  that  man  alone  had  a  soul.  This  was 
the  origin  of  Suttee,  this  is  the  cause  of  the  burying 
alive  to-day  of  a  number  of  slave  wives  when  the 
chief  dies  among  some  African  tribes.  These  men 
want  some  one  to  wait  upon  them  in  the  regions  of 
the  blest  and  take  this  means  of  securing  them.  This 
is  the  reason  that  no  woman  is  ever  allowed  to  cross 
the  door  of  a  Mahommedan  mosque,  for  it  would  be 
blasphemous  to  recognise  the  equality  of  so  worthless 
a  creature  before  God.  This  is  the  reason  that 
Christianity  discussed  for  centuries  whether  her 
possession  of  a  soul  should  be  admitted. 

The  gap  in  the  theory  is  that  in  almost  all  of  these 
cases  man's  immortality  rests  entirely  upon  woman. 
In  all  ancestor  worshipping  lands,  and  that  embraces 
practically  the  whole  of  the  Orient  and  did  embrace 
ancient  Greece  and  Eome,  man's  only  hope  of  win- 
ning immortality  is  in  the  possession  of  male  poster- 
ity. So  important  is  this  that  repudiation  of  a  child- 
less wife  is  especially  provided  for  in  all  old  relig- 
ious codes,  and  women  in  India  are  such  slaves  to  this 
teaching  that  they  pray  continually  at  the  shrines 
devoted  to  fecundity  to  grant  them  fertility,  but  of 
male  children  only,  in  spite  of  the  fact,  that  a  large 
part  of  India  never  knows  throughout  life  what  it  is 
to  have  hunger  satisfied. 

This  is  the  reason  why  man  claimed  sole  parentage, 
231 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

for  if  he  permitted  to  woman  any  share  in  the 
bestowing  of  the  vital  spark  or  of  the  spirit,  it  would 
vitiate  his  claims.  It  is  by  no  means  clear  how  he 
ever  demeaned  himself  to  become  the  parent  of 
female  children,  or  how  he  accounted  for  it,  that 
his  sons  alone  inherited  spirit.  This  might  not  be  so 
difficult  in  the  case  of  an  Oriental,  especially  of  a 
Hindoo,  for  his  abstract  reasoning,  his  subtlety,  his 
occultism  might  find  a  way  out,  as,  by  the  absence 
of  his  astral  body  when  the  creature  was  conceived, 
but  with  the  philosophical  Greek  or  the  hard-headed 
Roman,  the  solution  would  not  be  so  simple,  if 
sophistry  was  in  the  habit  of  noticing  logical  gaps. 

The  same  argument  of  the  merely  material  func- 
tion of  maternity  afforded  ample  reason  why  no 
education  should  be  wasted  on  woman.  The  Hindoo 
asks,  why  educate  a  monkey  or  a  donkey?  and  the 
answer  is  that  it  would  be  putting  power  into  the 
hands  of  a  vicious  being.  Even  the  youngest  of  the 
nations,  the  United  States,  only  a  few  years  ago 
declared  that  she  had  no  brain  capacity.  This  is  a 
reflex  of  the  opinion  enunciated  earlier  by  the  Ger- 
man poet  Lessing,  that  "  a  woman  who  thought  was 
as  ridiculous  as  a  man  who  put  on  rouge." 

So  unquestioning  and  universal  was  man's  belief 
in  the  futility  of  offering  any  education  to  her  that 
when  a  young  woman  in  a  town  of  France  expressed 

232 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

her  intention  of  opening  a  school  for  girls,  her  aston- 
ished father  called  a  council  of  medical  and  legal 
men  to  inquire  into  her  sanity,  while  a  high-class 
Mahommedan,  who  happened  to  visit  an  English 
school  in  India,  on  hearing  his  daughter  ask  an 
intelligent  question  about  a  grammatical  construction, 
remarked  afterwards  to  a  friend  to  whom  he  was 
telling  it,  that  "  the  things  could  think." 

Here  again  another  question  presents  itself  that 
man  would  fmd  it  difficult  to  answer.  Why,  when 
he  was  so  sure  of  woman's  inferiority  should  he  have 
concerned  himself  so  much  about  her?  He  did  not 
deem  it  necessary  to  gauge  with  himself  the  relative 
merits  of  any  other  animal,  and  yet  according  to  his 
own  decree  woman  was  but  an  animal.  It  is  very 
clear,  nevertheless,  from  the  records  that  he  has  left 
ever  since  he  was  able  to  leave  any,  that  much  of  the 
time  and  thought  of  the  cleverest  men  of  all  lands 
were  given  to  her.  Every  religion,  every  legal  code 
and  the  literature  of  all  ages  deal  extensively  with 
her. 

Professor  Mahaffy  says  that,  '*  Satirical  reflections 
on  woman  are  so  common  in  almost  every  age  of 
Greek  literature,  indeed  of  all  literature,  that  they 
are  not  worth  commenting  on,"  and  Mr.  Lester  Ward 
adds  that,  "  At  the  beginning  of  the  historical  period 
woman  was  under  complete  subjection  to  man.     She 

233 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

had  so  long  been  a  slave  and  a  drudge  that  she  had 
lost  all  the  higher  attributes  that  she  had  originally 
possessed,  and  in  order  to  furnish  an  excuse  for  de- 
grading and  abusing  her,  men  had  imputed  to  her  a 
great  array  of  false  evil  qualities  that  tended  to  make 
her  despise  herself.  All  Oriental  literature,  all  the 
ancient  sacred  books  and  books  of  law,  all  the  tradi- 
tional epics,  all  literature  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and, 
in  fact,  all  that  was  written  during  the  Middle  Ages 
and  much  of  the  literature  of  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth, 
and  seventeenth  centuries  teem  with  epithets,  flings 
and  open  condemnation  of  women  as  beings  in  some 
manner  vile  and  hateful,  often  malicious  and  evilly 
disposed,  and  usually  endowed  with  some  supersti- 
tious power  for  evil.  The  horrors  of  witchcraft  were 
nothing  but  the  normal  fruit  of  this  prevailing  spirit, 
in  the  hands  of  the  superstitious  priests  of  a  miracle- 
based  cult." 

So  much  wasted  energy  is  not  consistent  with 
man's  professed  belief.  Why  should  he  have  im- 
mortalised her  by  making  of  her  a  cause  celebref 
Obviously  a  deep-seated  lurking  fear  of  her  dwelt 
in  his  mind.  He  knew,  however  incoherently,  that 
the  wish  to  make  her  as  subservient  to  him  as  any 
other  animal  was  father  to  the  thought,  but  he  was 
not  able  to  convince  himself  that  he  had  succeeded. 
He  knew  that  her  obedience  was  not  of  the  will  but 

234 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

of  compulsion.  He  moulded  and  fashioned  her;  he 
made  her  subtle,  dissembling,  long-suffering,  out- 
wardly submissive,  but  beyond  that  he  could  not  go. 

The  inner  sanctity  of  her  being,  so  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  was  inviolate,  and  she  baffled  and  eluded 
him;  she  obeyed  but  to  command;  she  yielded  but  to 
lead.  Her  biological  instinct  of  protection  bestowed 
on  her  for  the  work  of  love,  when  diverted  from  its 
natural  course,  was  not  destroyed,  but  turned  into 
other  channels  and  compelled  by  a  hard  necessity 
to  protect  herself  by  means  that  the  natural  woman 
of  God's  design  never  dreamt  of.  Intended  from  the 
beginning  to  have  the  care  of  the  race  in  her  hands, 
her  brain  cells  had  a  capacity  for  complexity,  for 
penetration,  for  alertness,  for  deep  insight,  for  far- 
reaching  designs,  for  accomplishment  by  a  hundred 
means,  that  man's  brain  cells  have  no  capacity  to 
follow,  even  afar  off. 

He  may  measure  and  weigh  and  compare  size,  and 
reach  his  conclusion  from  the  physical,  but  the  one 
thing  that  marks  off  female  from  male  brain  cannot 
be  weighed  nor  seen.  It  has  neither  dimensions  nor 
density,  for  it  is  spirit,  and  that  is  the  point  where 
his  understanding  stopped,  and  where  woman  as 
differentiated  from  man  began.  Her  spirit  came 
from  the  Eternal  and  is  of  the  Eternal,  and  if  it  is 
true  as  a  Greek  writer  said,  that  thoTigh  "  terrible 

235 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

is  the  force  of  the  sea,  terrible  the  rush  of  the  river 
and  the  blasts  of  hot  fire,  terrible  is  poverty,  terrible 
are  a  thousand  other  things;  but  none  is  such  a 
terrible  evil  as  woman.  No  painter  can  adequately 
represent  her;  no  language  can  describe  her;  but  if 
she  is  the  creation  of  any  of  the  gods,  let  him  know 
that  he  is  a  very  great  creator  of  evils  and  a  foe  to 
mortals,"  man  himself  is  the  god  that  made  her  so. 

He  decreed  slavery  for  her  but  is  bound  by  the 
chains  that  he  forged ;  he  prepared  a  net  for  her  but 
is  caught  in  it  himself;  he  dug  the  pit  for  her  feet 
but  fell  into  it  himself.  His  intellect  may  be  culti- 
vated and  his  reasoning  of  a  high  order,  but  it  is 
still  of  the  earth,  earthly.  Man's  brain  like  his  body 
is  crude,  his  methods  are  primitive,  superficial  and 
limited,  for  life  in  all  its  complexities  proclaims  that 
his  brain  processes  begin  and  end  with  himself.  If 
his  mind  had  been  illumined  with  the  slightest  spirit- 
ual perception,  he  would  have  seen  the  folly  and 
hopelessness  of  entering  into  a  conflict  with  a  being 
endowed  as  woman.  But  his  brain  registered  only 
what  the  physical  enacted,  will  against  will,  without 
taking  into  account  the  spirit  that  lay  behind  the 
will  of  his  adversary.  So  the  conqueror  is  being 
conquered,  for  out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  suck- 
lings has  strength  been  ordained. 

Woman  has  many  sex  failings  but  her  vagaries  and 
236 


WOMAN  AS  MAN  HAS  MADE  HER 

irritabilities,  her  discontent  and  her  nervousness,  her 
ills  mental  and  physical,  her  moods  and  tempers,  her 
exactions  and  unreasonableness,  are  inherited  not 
inherent.  Man  says  that  she  is  incomprehensible,  but 
he  made  the  key  that  fits  the  lock.  There  is  no  riddle 
about  her.  Read  in  the  light  of  past  history  all  her 
complexities  vanish,  and  we  are  face  to  face  with 
the  immutable  law  of  cause  and  effect.  It  is  rather 
a  matter  of  surprise  that  there  is  any  good  at  all  left 
in  her.  Had  she  been  free  to  develop  as  man  was, 
what  might  she  not  have  been  with  her  superior 
endowments  ? 

As  it  is,  humanity  is  a  living  witness  to  the 
supremest  miracle  of  the  most  Supreme  Being,  that 
she  is  not  demonjratjier  than  human.  But  the  being 
to  whom  He  gave  of  His  divinity,  m^aternal  love  and 
a  love  of  the  beautiful,  had  Avithin  herself  a  power 
which  has  weathered  all  storms,  and  this  alone  has 
saved  the  race. 


SS7 


VII 
EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WOMAN'S  DEGRADATION 

When  we  consider  humanity  as  it  is  to-day  after 
tens  upon  tens  of  thousands  of  years  upon  the  globe, 
with  the  rule  of  force  just  passed  away ;  with  barbar- 
ism cropping  out  on  all  sides;  lawless  men  killing 
one  another  for  dollars;  leading  financiers,  men  of 
weight  in  the  community,  being  sent  frequently  to 
the  penitentiaries  for  flagrant  violations  of  trust; 
when  we  know  that  hundreds  of  others  are  committing 
similar  offencfes  and  escaping  detection  with  their 
ill-gotten  gains;  when  senators  and  statesmen  are 
trafficking  in  tariffs  and  selling  out  the  public  whom 
they  promised  to  serve;  when  each  nation  keeps  an 
army  of  officials  to  spy  upon,  outwit,  hoodwink,  and 
defraud  its  neighbour  of  an  advantage,  and  diplo- 
macy is,  too  frequently,  only  a  specious  title  for 
knavery;  when  the  smaller  nations  are  trembling  lest 
their  powerful  neighbours  swoop  dowm  upon  them 
like  the  eagle  on  his  prey ;  when  the  necessities  of  life 
are  gambled  with,  that  a  few  may  wax  rich  at  the 
expense  of  the  many  and  the  old  pugnacity  of  the 
sword  has  become  the  pugnacity  of  commerce;  when 
men  can  scarcely  trust  their  neighbours,  or  their 
employees  of  long  standing ;  when  families  are  broken 

238 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

up  by  domestic  feuds,  and  hatred  reigns  where  peace 
should  dwell;  when  marriage  is  almost  universally 
pronounced  a  failure;  when  gaols  and  penitentiaries, 
houses  of  correction  and  insane  asylums  and  hos- 
pitals, those  ugly  excrescences,  which  are  the  result 
of  misgovemment  and  sin.  fill  the  land,  when  by  far 
the  largest  proportion  of  the  people  on  the  globe 
are  steeped  in  ignorance  and  the  basest  superstition, 
and  are  almost  loathsome  in  their  mental  and  spirit- 
ual deformity,  in  filth  and  disease  under  man's  rule, 
we  can  gauge  with  some  exactness  the  awful  ven- 
geance that  the  God  of  all  the  earth  has  taken  on 
man,  for  the  abuse  of  his  handmaiden  whom  he 
specially  endowed  with  characteristics,  which,  if 
allowed  free  exercise  would  have  enabled  humanity, 
to  have  avoided  those  darkest  potentialities  which  are 
the  result  of  one-half  of  the  race  undertaking  to  do 
the  work  of  the  whole. 

The  evident  intention  of  the  Creator  was  that  the 
two  should  work  together  for  the  common  good, 
supplementing  and  complementing  one  another. 
Each  had  its  own  quota  to  give  to  assist  in  the  wel- 
fare of  the  whole,  but  the  subjection  and  total  exclu- 
sion of  the  higher  to  the  lower  has  wrought  all  the 
woe  that  humanity  has  become  heir  to;  and  though 
cruelty,  injustice  and  abuse,  did  not,  because  they 
could  not,  destroy  what  the  Eternal  had  implanted, 

239 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

they  dragged  it  in  the  mire.  Had  not  woman  been 
the  mother  of  every  being  that  was  born,  had  she  not 
nursed,  and  fondled  and  watched  over  the  infancy  of 
every  man,  the  two  sexes  must  have  hated  each  other 
with  all  the  bitterness  of  the  abuser  and  the  abused. 

The  results  of  man's  rule  can  best  be  seen  in  those 
lands  where  he  holds  woman  in  complete  subjection. 
As  this  is  the  condition  all  over  Asia,  and  as  Asia 
contains  one-half  of  the  population  of  the  globe,  it 
is  obvious  that  the  condition  of  the  human  family, 
in  its  essential  features,  is  worse  than  when  life  com- 
menced, for  sin,  disease,  cruelty  and  hunger  had  no 
place  under  woman's  rule.  But  to  this  already  large 
population  must  be  added  Turkey  in  Europe  and 
native  Africa.  These  countries  have  been  dominated 
by  man  for  at  least  a  millenium  before  the  Christian 
era  and  probably  much  longer. 

Since  that  time,  China,  so  far  as  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  concerned,  has  been  practically  dead  till 
within  thirty  years,  notwitlistanding  that  she  has  a 
population  of  about  400,000,000.  Some  3500  years 
ago  she  had  a  wonderful  civilisation.  She  knew  the 
art  of  printing  when  Europe  was  the  home  of  half- 
naked  savages.  The  principle  of  the  compass,  the 
making  of  porcelain,  and  the  use  of  gunpowder  all 
emanated  from  her.  But  for  two  thousand  years 
she  had  been  an  inert  mass,  wholly  unknown  to  the 

240 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

outside  world  beyond  a  geographical  region.  It  was 
not  until  England  forced  her  to  open  five  ports  to 
foreign  vessels  in  the  early  Victorian  era  that  she 
admitted  the  existence  of  any  other  land. 

As  she  lived  in  the  world,  so  she  lived  at  home. 
Hundreds  of  millions  of  people  bent  under  the  yoke 
of  a  soulless  few,  who  took  the  lives  of  those  who 
resisted,  or  of  any  who  stood  in  their  way,  without 
the  slightest  hesitation,  who  inflicted  punishments 
so  cruel,  that  fiendish  ingenuity  could  not  conceive 
of  anything  worse.  It  is  said  that  criminals  are  fre- 
quently put  to  death  by  being  flayed  piece  by  piece 
so  as  to  prolong  the  suffering.  This  was  a  common 
method  in  other  ancient  lands,  and  as  Assyria 
and  Christian  Europe  did  the  same  practically  in 
the  name  of  a  God  of  love  down  to  a  few  centu- 
ries ago,  it  requires  no  stretch  of  the  imagination  to 
accept  it  as  true  of  China  to-day. 

As  might  easily  be  inferred,  her  women  are  the 
most  completely  enslaved,  the  most  abject,  the  most 
broken-spirited  of  all.  The  system  of  concubinage  is 
in  force  and  all  wives  are  bought  and  sold.  While 
a  girl  is  still  young  a  husband  is  selected  by  her 
father,  or  in  lieu  of  him,  a  brother  or  some  other 
male  relative,  and  the  price  paid  is  accepted  as  an 
indemnity  for  the  trouble  of  letting  her  grow  up 
uncared  for,  as  likely  unwashed  and  unkept.     She 

16  241 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

never  sees  the  man  till  fhe  wedding  day  or  the  day 
of  the  public  betrothal  which  precedes  it  by  a  week 
or  more.  Once  she  is  carried  over  the  threshold  of 
her  husband's  home  she  is  required  to  be  "an  echo" 
in  the  house;  to  obey  blindly,  however  outrageous, 
the  request  made;  to  serve  on  demand  in  any  and 
every  capacity,  to  work  unceasingly  if  the  situation 
demands  it;  and  to  take  whatever  punishment  is  in- 
flicted without  protest,  and  this  power  of  the  husband 
has  little  limit. 

One  of  the  common  epithets  applied  to  a  wife  is 
"  Broom-and-dust-pan. "  Only  a  daughter  is  left  in 
her  hands,  a  son  being  removed  from  her  control  at 
an  early  age  because  of  her  unfitness  to  bring  up  so 
superior  a  being,  and  it  appears  that  even  while  he 
is  under  her  charge  she  is  not  allowed  to  reprove 
him  in  any  way.  Women  in  China,  as  throughout 
the  entire  Orient,  are  compelled  to  do  all  the  heavy 
work.  They  unload  the  boats,  carry  brick,  mortar, 
earth,  granite  boulders,  coal  or  whatever  else  is  to  be 
carried.  Moreover  when  a  girl  marries  she  is  cut  off 
from  her  ovra  people,  the  chances  are  that  she  never 
sees  them  again,  and  so  far  as  they  are  concerned  she 
is  dead  to  them.  Little  wonder  mothers  gladly  ex- 
pose them  as  infants  to  a  speedy  death.  Compelled 
to  be  mothers  without  any  consideration  of  their 
wishes,  and  with  all  motherliness  and  tenderness  out- 

242 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

raged,  what  a  temptation  to  save  the  little  one  from 
a  life  of  suffering! 

This  total  separation  of  a  daughter  from  her  own 
family  is  a  peculiarity  that  follows  descent  in  the 
male  line,  and  exists  wherever  woman  is  wholly 
without  influence.  It  is  a  necessary  concomitant  of 
sale.  The  purchaser  has  the  sole  OAvnership,  and  the 
interest  of  the  former  owner  ceases  when  the  bargain 
is  concluded  and  the  goods  delivered.  This  is  the 
great  difference  between  descent  in  the  female  line 
and  descent  in  the  male,  because  it  is  the  fundamental 
difference  between  woman  and  man.  In  the  former 
case,  the  wife's  family  exercised  a  supervision  over 
the  married  daughter  and  over  her  children,  and  the 
husband  dared  not  abuse  either,  for  the  wife  could 
return  to  her  former  home  and  bring  her  children 
with  her,  for  they  did  not  belong  to  the  father  but 
to  the  mother. 

We  are  not  unfamiliar  with  the  alleged  results  of 
this  ourselves,  since  it  gave  rise  to  the  familiar  ''too 
much  mother-in-law."  However  little  truth  there 
was  in  this  latter  day  sophistry — and  its  death  and 
burial  is  the  tacit  witness  that  it  had  to  go  the  way 
of  all  untruth — it  had  a  firm  and  solid  foundation 
to  stand  upon  in  the  beginning.  There  was  no  beat- 
ing of  wife  and  children  and  no  female  infanticide, 
when  the  wife's  mother   and  the   children's  grand- 

243 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

mother  stood  between  husband  and  wife,  and  father 
and  child,  with  power  in  her  hands  as  a  guardian  and 
protector. 

India,  unlike  China,  was  not  a  united  country 
under  a  central  government,  but  was  parcelled  out 
into  separate  principalities.  This  gave  man  ample 
opportunity  for  the  indulgence  of  his  quarrelsome- 
ness and  pugnacity,  and  like  his  animal  progenitors 
he  fought  with  his  own  people  on  his  own  soil,  and 
as  a  house  divided  against  itself,  it  fell.  She  is  a 
subject  nation,  in  consequence,  and  with  a  population 
equal  to  that  of  China,  is  under  a  nation  which  is 
only  a  fraction  of  herself,  territorially  and  numeri- 
cally. The  same  spirit  that  led  man  to  oppress 
woman  led  the  powerful  among  them  to  oppress  the 
weak,  and  out  of  slavery  in  India  grew  the  caste  sys- 
tem, which  is  now  the  fundamental  but  arbitrary 
base  of  Indian  society. 

The  population  is  divided  into  classes  which  are 
almost  as  completely  separated  from  one  another  as 
Dives  and  Lazarus,  the  largest  proportion  being 
pariahs  or  outcasts.  Outside  of  this  pale  they  can 
never  go  in  any  of  their  generations.  Whatsoever  the 
ability  of  any  individual  may  be,  he  is  hopelessly 
predestined  to  remain  in  the  state  and  condition  in 
which  he  was  bom.  This  may  have  afforded  the  model 
for  the  Apostle  Paul,  who  was  an  Oriental,  for  the 

2U 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

kingdom  to  come  when  he  limited  the  power  of  the 
Almighty  in  the  absurd  doctrine  called  predestination. 

The  social  system  in  India  is  patriarchal  and 
wherever  this  system  prevails  when  a  girl  is  betrothed 
between  the  ages  of  five  and  eight,  she  goes  to  the 
home  of  her  mother-in-law  to  be,  to  be  brought  up  in 
the  interests  of  her  son.  The  young  child  in  her 
tender  years  is  put  into  the  hands  of  a  woman  who 
is  an  ingrained  disciple  in  the  belief  of  the  worth- 
lessness  of  her  own  sex  and  who  has  no  doubts  what- 
soever of  the  godhead  of  her  son,  an  unfortunate 
effect  recorded  by  man  teaching  on  the  brain  cells  of 
all  women.  Could  any  system  be  conceived  that 
could  conduce  more  thoroughly  to  the  total  annihila- 
tion of  all  womanliness  in  woman,  all  tenderness,  all 
maternal  affection,  or  more  completely  brutalise  man 
by  feeding  his  inherent  vanity,  in  thus  giving  him- 
self a  power  over  the  lives  of  others  that  none  but 
a  being  endowed  with  love  could  safely  exercise ! 

This  power  of  the  father  is  a  double-edged  sword 
that  unsexed  woman  on  both  sides.  It  took  her  off- 
spring from  her  bosom  and  gave  it  to  a  stranger, 
without  any  regard  for  a  mother's  yearning,  and  it 
put  into  her  hands  the  child  of  a  stranger,  to  be  bent 
and  broken  for  her  son,  thus  in  turn,  giving  her  a 
power  that  was  in  constant  conflict  with  a  mother 
love    that    was    vitiated    by    false    teaching.      Truly 

3i5 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

woman  has  been  warped  by  the  constant  conflict  of 
her  affections  infinitely  more  than  she  was  brutalised 
by  bodily  suffering,  and  as  this  took  place  in  the 
higher  nature  it  has  left  a  deeper  influence  for  evil 
on  humanity  and  will  be  the  last  to  give  way.  If 
under  such  unnatural  conditions,  she  took  her  child's 
life,  it  was  the  highest  expression  of  mother  love  that 
the  situation  permitted  that  led  her  to  do  it.  A  pinch 
of  the  jugular  vein  or  an  opium  pill,  that  released 
the  infant  spirit  from  a  brutal  world,  must  have  been 
an  almost  irresistible  temptation  to  love. 

Egypt  has  not  been  a  free  country  since  the  fifth 
century  before  the  Christian  era.  Bandied  about 
from  power  to  power,  when  England  was  forced  to 
take  her  in  hand  in  1882,  her  population  was  in  a 
state  of  indescribable  misery.  Almost  the  whole  ter- 
ritory was  in  the  hands  of  the  ruler,  with  the  inhabi- 
tants in  bondage  of  forced  labour  to  serve  him,  and 
pay  the  taxes  by  starving  themselves  and  their  fam- 
ilies. Turkey  has  long  been  a  by-word  for  all  that 
is  most  fiendish,  inhuman  and  cruel  in  government, 
for  murder,  assassination  and  poisoning  of  Sultan, 
vizier  and  all  officials  who  were  out  of  favour, 
and  for  a  total  disregard  for  the  welfare  of 
the  people.  Lying,  treachery  and  dishonesty  are  her 
methods,  no  land  has  the  slightest  faith  in  her  and 
to-day  she  is  reaping  the  just  reward  of  her  dealings. 

246 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

Morocco  with  a  fertile  country  and  a  salubrious 
climate  and  a  population  of  five  millions  lies  in  the 
dust  so  completely  undone  that  she  has  nothing  to 
say  about  her  o^vn  future  and  is  not  even  consulted, 
but  is  merely  a  prey  over  which  the  European 
nations  are  contending.  Morocco  died  at  the  top 
where  all  the  others  are  dying  or  have  died.  Man 
holds  woman  in  absolute  possession  in  each  of  these 
lands,  and  consequently  in  absolute  submission  and 
they  themselves  in  turn,  for  the  very  same  reason, 
are  held  in  the  hollow  of  the  hand  of  a  loveless 
bureaucracy  and  done  to  death  in  the  most  unholy 
fashion. 

The  writer  watched  a  Moor  on  a  vessel  bound  from 
Gibraltar  to  Tangier  w^ho  boarded  it,  followed  at  a 
respectful  distance  by  his  female  chattels,  presu- 
mably his  \\afe  and  daughter.  Both  were  enveloped 
in  heavy  veils  tied  across  the  face  just  below  the 
eyes,  and  the  abject  creatures  dared  not  even  look 
at  their  sister  women,  except  Avith  furtive,  stolen 
glances.  A  dog  may  walk  at  his  master's  side  but 
not  a  woman  at  the  side  of  an  Oriental  or  a  Mahom- 
medan.  When  he  had  driven  them  into  the  small 
cabin,  whose  slatted  windows  would  not  permit  them 
to  look  out,  he  locked  the  door  and  walked  off  with 
the  key  in  his  pocket  to  sit  down  at  his  ease  and 
smoke  and  chat  with  the  men  around  him,  enjoying 

247 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  soft  delicious  air,  of  a  gently  sunlit  December 
morning,  but  the  women  over  whom  he  had  dominion, 
were  denied  the  commonest  gifts  of  God,  the  air  and 
the  sunlight,  shut  in  in  the  dark  and  treated  worse 
than  the  beasts  of  the  field. 

Yet,  if  civilisation  means  the  arts  of  life,  all  these 
brutal  lands  were  highly  civilised.  The  West  is  the 
debtor  to  the  East  in  every  respect.  All  are  learning 
came  originally  from  it.  Astronomy,  law,  medicine, 
all  the  sciences  and  arts  of  life  had  their  birth  in 
the  East.  They  had  splendid  languages,  highly  in- 
flected. Students  went  from  all  over  Europe  to  the 
university  of  Alexandria.  The  theory  of  evolution 
was  promulgated  before  Christ  who  was  himself  an 
Asiatic.  Whatever  knowledge  Europe  had  in  the 
dark  ages  came  from  the  Jews  and  the  Arabs.  The 
renaissance  was  the  result  of  the  inspiration  of 
Gieeks  from  Asiatic  colonies.  We  have  had  no  new 
philosophy  since  Plato  and  Aristotle  wrote  some 
twenty-five  hundred  years  ago.  Cardinal  Ximenes,  the 
head  of  the  Inquisition,  was  the  author  of  the  destruc- 
tion by  fire,  of  a  Moorish  library  of  some  eighty  thou- 
sand volumes  that  was  invaluable.  Many  words  in  our 
language  together  with  the  sciences  for  which  they 
stand  are  of  Arabic  origin. 

Everything  they  did  in  the  arts  and  crafts  was 
better  done  than  it  is  in  the  West.    They  built  better 

248 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

buildings  for  they  built  for  time,  we  for  a  few  years. 
Ours  are  the  mere  shuttle  cocks  of  the  elements  as 
compared  with  theirs.  They  built  canals  and  tun- 
nels, acqueducts  and  sewers.  One  may  go  into  the 
ruins  of  Pompeii  and  see  plumbing  very  like  what 
is  found  in  our  homes  to-day,  and  kitchen  utensils 
that  are  identical.  The  floors  and  Arabs  under  the 
influence  of  Islamism  dominated  southern  Spain  for 
eight  hundred  years  and  threatened  France  and 
southern  Europe.  They  attained  a  splendid  civili- 
sation, and  in  intellectual  and  material  things  they 
were  infinitely  superior  to  the  countries  they  invaded. 

"When  London  and  Paris  were  quagmires,  Moorish 
Europe  had  paved  and  lighted  streets  and  homes 
that  for  beauty  and  elegance,  grace  and  luxury, 
could  beggar  anything  that  we  have.  They  were 
accomplished  agriculturists,  they  irrigated  and  knew 
the  art  of  grafting  so  well  that  they  did  infinitely 
more  in  that  direction  than  we  have  done  since.  The 
Romans  in  ancient  Britain,  during  their  occupation, 
heated  their  houses  with  hot  water  or  steam.  All  that 
we  have,  they  had,  the  chief  difference  being  that 
with  us  they  have  extended,  to  some  extent,  to  the 
masses  while  with  them  comforts  were  limited  to  the 
classes. 

Yet  with  all  these  accomplishments,  ruling  man  was 
cruel  to  the  utmost  degree  to  his  fellow  man,  while 

249 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAJN 

woman  was  his  beast  of  burden,  his  domestic  animal 
or,  at  best,  his  plaything  or  his  harem  or  seraglio, 
and  the  slave  markets  of  the  world  were  scoured  to 
find  female  physical  beauty  to  gratify  him.  The 
altruistic  did  not  exist,  the  spiritual  was  not  even 
awakened.  They  were  dominated  by  a  priestly  caste, 
but  a  priesthood  whose  fundamental  principles  and 
teachings  were  the  degraded  nature  of  woman. 

Every  one  who  is  an  observer  of  life  Imows  that 
refinement,  which  is  altruistic,  is  not  necessarily  a 
concomitant  of  high  intellectual  development,  and 
that  one  may  have  acquired  a  vast  knowledge  of 
material  facts  and  have  obtained  a  comprehensive 
grasp  of  the  laws  which  govern  the  universe  with- 
out ever  having  his  moral  perceptions  awakened,  his 
heart  touched  by  one  faint  glimmer  of  tenderness, 
one  sympathising  emotion  for  the  sufferings  of 
others.  History,  the  civil  laws,  and  the  Canons  of 
the  church  amply  prove  this.  When  Blackstone 
wrote  his  commentaries,  a  little  upwards  of  a  cen- 
tury ago,  he  made  the  statement,  lamenting  it  at  the 
same  time,  that  man  considered  that  one  hundred  and 
sixty  offences  were  sufficiently  culpable  to  be  punished 
with  death,  and  less  than  one  hundred  years  ago,  nine- 
teen were  so  punished  on  the  western  side  of  the 
Atlantic. 

Yet  no  one  would  hesitate  to  admit  that  the  law 
260 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

makers  at  either  of  these  periods  were  cultured  men. 
We  know  on  the  contrary,  that  they  represented  the 
highest  qualities  that  the  times  afforded,  but  we 
know,  too,  that  by  their  laws  women  were  despised, 
beaten,  and  considered  only  the  servants  of  their  hus- 
bands, and  discriminated  against  in  every  direction. 
As  the  woman  is,  so  is  the  man ;  his  education  and 
culture  which  never  touched  his  heart  weigh  nothing 
in  the  balance. 

What  then  is  civilisation?  It  is  evidently  none  of 
these  things,  for  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  Memphis  and  Thebes,  were  great  and 
beautiful,  while  in  point  of  fact,  mediaeval  Europe 
was  little  less  inhuman  than  any  of  these  so-called 
uncivilised  lands.  Civilisation  is  woman.  There 
never  has  and  never  can  be  any  real  civilisation,  any 
true  progress  where  she  is  not  an  influential  factor 
in  the  lives  of  men  and  of  the  nation.  Theirs  was  a 
pseudo-civilisation.  It  represented  evervthing  that 
man  could  do  alone.  He  had  reached  his  highest 
possible  attainments  then  and  beyond  that  he  could 
not  go  alone.  He  has,  in  fact,  only  gone  beyond  it 
in  a  few  countries  in  the  last  two  hundred  years,  and 
he  had  to  be  dragged,  not  merely  led. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  back  to  dead  empires  to 
learn  what  man's  unrestrained  rule  means.  Neither 
is  it  necessary  to  take  anything  for  granted,  nor  yet 

261 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

is  it  possible  to  dismiss  the  subject  with  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  picture  has  been  drawn  in  too  lurid  a 
light,  for  here  as  elsewhere  the  overlapping  of  phases 
and  conditions  puts  it  out  of  the  realm  of  speculation 
and  forces  it  to  the  fore  as  a  hard,  living  reality.  It 
is  an  axiomatic  principle  of  sociology  that  the  politi- 
cal and  moral  standing  of  a  nation  can  be  best  gauged 
by  the  political  and  moral  standing  of  its  women. 
This  is  not  merely  a  sociological  fact.  It  is  a  biologi- 
cal fact.  It  was  the  imprint  from  the  beginning  and 
all  history  bears  it  out.  A  nation  is  only  an  aggrega- 
tion of  units,  and  what  is  true  of  this  aggregation, 
is  so,  because  it  is  true  of  the  units. 

As  long  as  man  regarded  himself  as  a  superior 
being  there  was  nothing  to  make  him  look  beyond 
himself.  The  attainment  of  his  own  ends  in  his  own 
way  was  his  sole  law  of  conduct  and  when  any  per- 
son or  class  of  persons  reaches  that  point  degeneracy 
is  inevitable.  There  is  nothing  so  dwarfing,  so  fatal, 
so  self-blinding,  so  paralysing  to  progress  as  egoism, 
and  in  the  case  of  a  being  whose  endowment  was 
selfishness  the  outlook  was  hopeless  so  long  as  he  was 
not  under  the  moderating  influence  of  another  being. 
Thus  the  nations  who  hold  their  women  under  the  iron 
heel  of  might,  actual  or  legal  or  both,  are  nations  over 
whose  brow  destruction  is  written  as  surely  and  inevi- 
tably as  the  sun  rises  in  the  east  and  sets  in  the  west. 

252 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

If  humanity  had  been  in  the  habit  of  reasoning 
from  effect  to  cause  it  would  have  solved  the  problem 
of  sex  long  ago  and  consequently  of  life  in  all  its 
phases,  for  we  need  only  look  at  the  boy  and  girl  at 
home  to  see  the  biological  foundation  fully  illustrated. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  human  male,  when  he 
is  true  to  type,  is  instinctively  cruel.  The  boy's  de- 
light, as  soon  as  consciousness  informs  him  that  by 
throwing  stones  at  the  frogs  in  the  pond  and  robbing 
birds'  nests  he  kills  and  inflicts  pain,  is  without  meas- 
ure, and  it  affords  him  a  fascinating  occupation  for 
the  long  summer  holidays  when,  like  his  animal  pro- 
genitors, he  roams  the  woods  and  kills  every  living 
thing  he  sees,  interspersed,  for  variety,  with  indul- 
gence in  its  kindred  vice  of  stealing  fruit  and  other- 
wise destroying  his  neighbour's  property,  and  the  boy 
who  does  not  show  these  tendencies  in  some  degree 
is  disapproved  of  by  his  elders,  especially  by  men  who 
regard  him  as  effeminate,  for  virility  is  their  fetich. 
This  is  regarded  as  a  laudable  epithet,  but  no  one 
was  more  brutal  than  the  Roman  "vir,"  and  the 
more  virile  a  general  or  Consul  was,  the  more  incon- 
siderate he  wa.s  of  the  conquered,  and  the  harder  his 
terms  of  capitulation. 

At  the  same  age,  a  girl's  consciousness  leads  her  to 
enjoy  dolls,  the  budding  maternal  instinct,  which  is 
a  giving  out  of  herself  to  others,  and  the  construc- 
tive qualities  of  mind.    She  pets  and  fondles,  dresses 

253 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

and  undresses  them,  and  when  she  can  make  their 
clothes  and  wash  and  iron  them,  her  cup  of  joy  is 
full  to  overflowing.  To  love  and  protect  is  her  in- 
stinct, to  cause  suffering  and  destruction  is  his,  and 
as  soon  as  the  little  boy  can  draw  conclusions,  he 
despises  and  jeers  at  his  sister  who  can  be  amused 
so  tamely.  He  cannot  understand  her  and  she  can- 
not understand  him,  for  consciousness  is  the  point  of 
departure  of  the  sexes.  If  the  boy  learns  to  curb 
his  cruelty  and  to  abandon  his  destructiveness,  it  is 
the  result  of  years  of  patient  training  and  is  an 
acquired  habit.  The  bullying,  and  ragging,  and  haz- 
ing in  colleges  became  a  scandal,  and  public  opinion 
had  to  rise  in  indignation  to  put  an  end  to  it. 

"When  woman  was  so  mentally  dominated  that  she 
saw  only  through  men's  eyes;  when  she  accepted  his 
theory  about  her  sex  till  it  became  her  theory;  when 
she  preferred  sons  for  the  same  reason  as  men  did, 
and  discriminated  against  her  daughters  in  favour 
of  her  sons  as  the  majority  of  women  are  still  doing, 
the  upward  progress  of  humanity  was  hindered,  and 
will  continue  to  be  gauged  just  in  proportion  as  this 
attitude  is  maintained.  Man  cannot  take  one  step 
forward  in  altruism  except  as  he  is  influenced  by 
woman.  She  must  be  the  path-finder  or  it  will  never 
be  found  and  she  must  find  it  herself,  not  only  un- 
aided but  obstructed  at  every  point.     This  has  been 

254 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

the  history  of  every  step  she  has  gained.  Like  the 
plebeians  of  Rome  she  has  had  to  fight  for  every  inch 
of  ground.  This  is  the  psychological  result  of  man's 
biological  endowment.  He  cannot  be  expected  to  see 
differently  except  as  woman  is  capable  of  teaching 
him,  and  nothing  but  compulsion  on  her  part,  stead- 
ily pressed  and  unflinchingly  brought  home  through 
every  possible  avenue,  will  change  the  face  of  life. 

The  real  object  that  woman  has  to  fight  is  herself. 
All  her  powers  have  been  enslaved  and  to  win  the 
battle  for  humanity  she  must  conquer  herself.  Her 
battlefield  is  in  the  mind  and  just  in  proportion 
as  she  dominates  that  she  conquers  the  world.  This 
is  well  illustrated  in  her  struggle  to  win  freedom  to 
go  out  and  come  in  at  her  will,  and  the  consequences 
of  it  when  it  was  won.  It  was  the  first  great  epoch- 
making  step  since  the  beginning  of  the  patriarchate 
for  the  loosening  of  the  rale  of  brute  force,  and  the 
slowness  of  its  progress  enables  us  to  form  some  idea 
of  the  length  of  time  required  to  eradicate  an  old 
conception  and  register  a  new  one. 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  is  plain  to  be  seen  that 
the  first  step  necessary  to  mental  freedom  is  physical 
freedom.  Veiled  women  are  not  only  physically 
veiled  but  mentally  and  spiritually  veiled.  Progress 
upward  had  to  begin  on  the  lowest  plane  for  the  mind 
waits  on  the  body.     The  Grecian  women  never  rose 

255 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

above  the  incubator  stage  because  they  were  confined 
to  upper  rooms  and  were  allowed  to  see  only  such 
people  as  their  husbands  permitted.  This  doubtless 
was  limited  to  relatives,  and  women  at  that,  for  such 
inane  beings  could  not  appeal  to  fathers  or  brothers, 
and  having  once  been  disposed  of  were,  in  all  prob- 
ability, no  longer  a  matter  of  concern.  The  attitude 
of  the  Greek  to  any  one  who  had  no  voice  in  public 
affairs  is  shown  in  the  epithet  "  idiot  "  applied  to 
them ;  thus  the  women,  even  though  citizen  born,  were 
assimilated  by  the  slaves  and  as  such  of  no  account. 

In  Rome  while  men  held  women  in  like  low  esteem, 
the  Roman  matron  had  never  allowed  herself  to  be 
reduced  to  the  state  of  an  incubator,  but  reserved 
for  herself  a  certain  amount  of  freedom  of  action, 
and  could  see  and  be  seen.  The  result  was  that  the 
Roman  women  in  time  waged  a  successful  contest 
against  man  domination  and  won  a  large  measure  of 
freedom.  This  was  the  handwriting  on  the  wall,  the 
cloud  that  was  at  first,  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand. 
But  so  great  a  hold  had  man's  belief  in  his  right  to 
control  every  action  of  woman,  so  completely  did  he 
regard  her  as  his  possession,  and  so  few  of  the  sex 
were  broad  enough  to  repudiate  this  right  of  control, 
that  for  centuries  she  was  expected  to  indulge  in  it 
with  discretion. 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  Frederick  "William  of 
Prussia  was  in  the  habit  of  approaching  women  whom 

256 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

he  met  on  the  streets,  with  his  upraised  cane  and 
ordering  them  to  go  back  into  the  house,  adding  that 
decent  women  should  keep  indoors.  It  finally  became 
a  matter  of  class  distinction,  for,  till  within  a  few 
decades,  girls  of  the  upper  classes,  in  England, 
France,  and  Spain,  never  went  into  the  street  unless 
accompanied  by  a  maid,  chaperon  or  duenna,  while 
married  women  clung  to  their  husband's  arm  in 
broad  daylight,  as  if  the}^  still  feared  wife  capture 
or  were  too  imbecile  to  direct  their  movements. 

This  tendency  of  the  human  being  to  make  a  virtue 
of  compulsion  is  found  in  the  savage  as  well  as  in  the 
most  cultivated,  for  the  woman  of  a  native  Indian  tribe 
of  California  looked  down  upon  any  woman  who  was 
not  purcha.sed  by  her  husband,  holding  that  she  could 
not  be  of  much  account  unless  she  cost  him  a  price. 

But  it  remained  for  the  American  woman  to  do 
away  with  the  last  remnant  of  restraint.  All  Europe 
held  up  itvS  hands  in  horror  at  the  shocking  boldness 
of  the  American  girl,  because  she  dared  to  go  around 
unattended,  and  to  act  as  a  human  being  who  had 
some  grey  matter  in  her  cranium  and  was  not  a 
creature  of  "arrested  development."  A  novel  which 
caused  a  furore  and  great  amusement  thirty  years 
ago,  "The  American  Girl  in  London,"  gave  a  graphic 
portrayal  of  the  consternation  she  caused  in  English 
society,  and  at  the  same  time  set  forth  very  clearly, 

17  257 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  attitude  of  English  mothers,  as  well  as  fathers, 
in  the  matter  of  liberty  for  girls. 

If  she  could  not  be  trusted  to  walk  the  streets  in 
high  noon  day  neither  could  she  be  trusted  to  select 
her  husband,  nor  indeed  was  she  given  any  oppor- 
tunity to  do  so.  A  being  possessed  had  no  right  to 
assume  to  dispose  of  herself,  or  to  have  any  indi- 
vidual opinions,  thoughts  or  views  on  any  subject 
and  this  condition  still  prevails  largely  throughout 
Europe  and  in  Spanish  South  America.  The  custom 
of  asking  a  father  for  the  hand  of  his  daughter  is  as 
yet  a  very  close  relative  of  his  right  to  dispose  of  her. 
In  consequence,  till  well  within  half  a  century,  mar- 
riage was  a  matter  of  compulsion  in  which  the  girl  was 
not  consulted.  It  was)  arranged  by  f  athe!rs  and  was  con- 
ducted almost  wholly  on  a  monetary  basis.  The  phrase- 
ology in  which  engagements  are  announced  in  the  pub- 
lic press  in  England  still  bears  its  life  history :  "An  en- 
gagement has  been  arranged  between  M.  and  N." 

From  such  unions  came  the  new  generation,  much 
more  frequently  undesired  by  the  mother  than  other- 
wise, for  whether  affection  ever  resulted  from  unions 
so  formed  was  a  matter  of  hit  and  miss,  and  doubt- 
less miss  was  the  more  general,  and  very  often  worse 
ensued,  for  mutual  hatred  reigned,  and  women  be- 
came mothers  only  because  they  could  not  protect 
themselves.   Children  came  into  the  world  the  pre- 

258 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

natal  victims  of  a  vicious  social  system  presided  over 
by  a  being  who  had  no  conception  of  love  beyond  self- 
love,  and  with  this  heritage  imprinted  on  their  brain 
cells   to   pass   along   from   generation   to   generation. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  marriage  has  been  largely 
a  failure,  that  children  of  unwilling  wives  and 
mothers  have  so  often  been  a  disappointment  and 
far  from  an  unmixed  blessing,  and  that  the  present 
generation  of  women  have  implanted  on  their  brain 
cells  this  long  protest  of  mothers  and  grandmother 
against  child  bearing  under  such  conditions  and  re- 
fuse to  be  mothers.  It  is  rather  a  miracle  that  under 
such  assiduous  planting,  watering,  and  tending  for 
evil  a  condition  so  barren  of  possibilities  for 
good  and  so  overladen  with  chances  for  shipwreck 
has  survived  and  in  thousands  of  cases  reached  its 
highest  potentialities. 

Moreover  this  belief  in  the  ownership  and  right  of 
control  over  the  lives  and  destinies  of  children  has 
been  a  prolific  source  of  much  misery  and  evil  to 
boys  as  well  as  girls.  No  son  could  choose  his  own 
vocation.  This  was  done  by  his  father  without  the 
slightest  regard,  even  to  the  extent  of  consulting  the 
boy's  wishes,  inclinations,  or  capabilities,  and  the  con- 
ditions were  such  that  he  had  no  choice  but  to  obey. 
How  many  lives  were  wrecked,  how  many  graves  were 
filled  with  drunkards  and  criminals  because  of  this 

259 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

domination  will  never  be  told.  Within  the  lifetime  of 
every  one  in  middle  life,  the  relationship  of  father  to 
child,  in  the  most  advanced  countries  of  Europe,  was 
almost  wholly  devoid  of  love,  but  was  that  of  the  stern 
parent  who  ruled  with  the  rod  of  iron  and  through  fear, 
while  desertion  of  them  is  still  one  of  the  evils  that 
society  is  constantly  being  called  on  to  contend  with. 
Furthermore  it  is  a  little  difficult  to  follow  the 
chain  of  reasoning  that  placed  the  most  important 
factor  in  life  in  the  hands  of  the  being  least  fitted  to 
bear  the  responsibility.  Even  granting  that  the 
spirit  of  the  child  was  received  from  the  father  it 
was  nevertheless  possible  to  do  it  incalculable  injury 
during  the  plastic  years  of  early  childhood  whose  im- 
pressions can  never  be  eradicated,  yet  this  was  the 
time  that  it  was  left  entirely  in  the  hands  of  a  being 
so  lacking  in  brain  capacity  that  only  that  which 
needed  the  lowest  order  of  intelligence  could  be  en- 
trusted to  her.  What  inspiration  could  be  drawn 
from  her  against  whom  all  the  engines  of  law  and 
man  had  to  be  invoked  to  keep  her  in  order,  and  all 
religion  repudiated  as  being  without  the  pale  of 
salvation?  Surely  such  a  creature  could  not  feed  a 
child  properly,  much  less  bring  it  up  in  the  way  in 
which  it  should  go.  The  efforts  which  are  being  made 
on  all  hands,  privately  and  by  corporate  bodies,  near 
eloquent  testimony  to  the  fruits  of  man's  theory. 

260 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

The  physical  abuse  of  woman  by  creating  an  un- 
healthy and  abnormal  nervous  system,  the  housing  of 
her  for  long  centuries  and  denying  her  the  greatest 
blessings  of  God,  the  air  and  sunlight,  which  are  dis- 
infectants for  ills  physical  and  mental,  have  created 
a  spirit  of  discontent,  querulousness,  and  irascibility, 
that  have  given  rise  to  the  nagging,  ill-governed,  un- 
reasonable tempers  that  ruin  innumerable  homes,  for 
the  mental  conditions  remain  long  after  the  causes 
that  called  them  forth  have  passed  away. 

The  equipment  that  nature  had  given  her  was  of 
the  amplest  kind,  had  it  not  been  so  she  could  never 
have  survived,  but  the  half-clad  woman  was  able  to 
resist  cold  that  man  could  not  bear,  because  she  had 
been  provided  with  a  layer  of  fat  under  the  skin,  that 
was  not  given  to  him.  Not  only  was  the  physical 
guarded  at  all  points,  but  love  was  given  which  meant 
willingness  to  serve,  and  mental  acumen  which  en- 
abled her  to  serve  in  many  and  diverse  capacities. 
All  these  advantages,  however,  were  rendered  of  little 
effect  for  man  classed  both  worker  and  work  as  un- 
important and  inferior.  He  has  been  telling  her  for 
centuries  that  she  is  of  no  account,  she  believes  it 
and  has  lived  up  to  his  thought  about  her,  and  does 
her  work  largely  as  such  a  being  might  be  expected 
to  do  it.     The  result  is  commensurate  with  the  logic. 

History  tells  of  but  one  small  group  of  men,  the 
Spartans,  on  whom  the  fact  ever  dawned  that  woman 

261 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

should  be  given,  at  least,  equal  advantages  with  man 
in  the  interests  of  the  race,  yet  no  one  ever  hears  a 
word  of  credit  given  to  them  for  their  grasp  of  a 
great  truth,  the  neglect  of  which  costs  untold  money 
yearly  to  every  nation,  not  to  speak  of  the  sorrow  and 
misery.  In  modern  Egypt,  it  is  said  that  ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  children  die  in  infancy  because  of  the  in- 
capacity of  mothers,  who  are  inert,  abject  and  over- 
worked. In  America  one  in  every  five  dies  largely 
because  of  her  ignorance.  Moreover  the  necessity  for 
reformatories,  parental  schools,  and  all  the  expensive 
paraphernalia  of  child  life  may  be  traced  in  great 
measure  to  her  total  unfitness,  to  the  debasing  ten- 
dency of  the  home,  while  much  of  disease  is  a  mere 
question  of  dirt. 

Reducing  the  results  of  this  logic  to  a  concrete 
illustration,  let  us  look  at  it  from  one  point  of  view 
alone.  All  mammals  are  provided  with  the  means  of 
feeding  their  young,  but  in  the  human  family  it  is 
more  and  more  becoming  the  exceptional  case  when  a 
woman  nurses  her  child.  Nature  made  a  long,  hard 
fight  against  registering  a  result,  which  is  probably 
largely  nervous,  on  her  physical  being  but  even 
nature  has  her  limits  and  humanity  alone  among  living 
beings  has  a  tremendous  problem  of  infant  nurture  as 
a  result.  This  is  not  true  of  the  animal  or  insect 
world.  Each  after  its  own  kind  shows  the  marvellous 
instinct  of  the   female  to  protect  and  nourish  her 

262 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

young.  No  physician,  however  skilful,  could  suggest 
any  improvement  in  the  methods  of  the  female  workers 
among  the  ants,  and  these  ants,  be  it  noted,  are  never 
mothers  themselves,  but  the  maternal  instinct  is  so 
developed  in  them  that  nothing  is  neglected  that  has 
any  bearing  on  the  young. 

Nay  more,  they  go  back  to  the  very  root  of  mater- 
nity, for  their  care  begins  with  the  eggs,  which  are 
handled  as  tenderly  and  assiduously  as  if  they  were 
already  hatched.  The  eggs  and  the  young  are  brought 
up  in  the  morning  to  sunlit  chambers,  and  taken 
down  at  sundown  for  fear  of  chill  or  damp,  and  if  a 
storm  comes  up  or  danger  threatens,  there  is  the 
greatest  consternation  among  the  worlters  who  never 
cease  their  activities  until  the  last  one  has  been  re- 
moved out  of  harm's  way. 

Surely  such  instinct  was  not  reserved  for  the  low- 
liest creatures !  How  comes  it  then  that  they  trans- 
mit it  without  a  break  from  brood  to  brood  or 
swarm  to  swarm?  In  the  light  of  the  vicissitudes  of 
woman's  history  this  question  answers  itself.  The 
female  of  the  lower  world  has  never  been  debased  by 
the  male.  This  covers  the  whole  ground.  Bulwer 
Lytton  summed  up  the  situation  when  he  said,  "It 
has  been  the  great  error  of  men,  and  one  that  has 
worked  bitterly  on  their  own  destinies,  that  they  have 
made  laws  unfavourable  to  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  woman.     Have  they  not  in  so  doing,  made 

263 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

laws  against  their  children,  whom  woman  are  to  rear, 
against  the  husbands  of  whom  women  are  to  be 
friends,  nay,  sometimes  the  advisers?  "  While  man 
was  bending  all  the  energies  of  his  mind  to  making 
woman  the  poisonous  viper,  the  heartless,  soulless  being, 
the  most  terrible  of  all  evils  that  afflict  the  earth  that 
he  was  always  proclaiming  her  to  be,  he  was  shutting 
the  door  of  all  hope  for  the  advance  of  humanity. 

The  variableness,  which  we  have  seen  is  biological 
in  the  male,  was  not  limited  to  the  physical,  for  the 
ability  of  man  to  reverse  at  will  the  order  that  he 
had  established  shows  that  it  was  deeply  impressed 
on  the  mind  as  well.  It  was,  indeed,  a  necessary  ex- 
pression of  self-love.  Of  the  many  and  diverse  means 
which  he  used  to  enslave  woman,  work  was  one  of  the 
most  constant,  but  with  the  introduction  of  machinery 
man  really  began  to  work  as  a  life  occupation.  But 
just  in  proportion  as  he  took  the  support  of  the  fam- 
ily on  himself,  he  began  to  shut  the  door  of  skilled 
labour  to  woman,  and  left  her  nothing  but  the  most 
menial  employments. 

He  had  long  before  discovered  that  she  was  unfit 
for  any  intellectual  service,  and  that  "being  born  in 
ignorance,  she  must  die  so,"  but  as  soon  as  he  began 
seriously  to  labour,  a  new  discovery  awaited  him,  and 
on  another  and  lowlier  plane  woman  was  denied  her 
birthright.     With  this  he  completed  the  cycle.     Each 

264, 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

plane  was  now  involved,  spiritual,  intellectual,  and 
industrial.  Heretofore  she  could  weave  his  clothes  and 
make  them,  but  now  she  was  indeed  * '  the  hewer  of  wood 
and  drawer  of  water  for  the  congregation  of  lords." 

She  was  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  parasite.  Like 
the  mistletoe,  she  had  to  cling  to  the  oak  for  support. 
Her  chief  occupation  was  to  find  a  husband  and  in 
doing  this  she  followed  the  only  example  she  had. 
She  knew  that  fathers  and  brothers  took  every  means 
in  their  power  to  overreach  their  competitors  in  their 
dealings  with  them  for  no  friendship  in  business  is 
their  motto,  and  she  adopted  both  motto  and  tactics 
with  regard  to  her  sister.  To  outdo  one  another  in 
wiles  and  dress  was  one  of  the  necessities  of  the  new 
situation  and  her  native  adaptability  came  to  her  aid. 

Heretofore  she  had  had  no  monopoly  of  this  weak- 
ness, for  we  read  that  ' '  In  most  but  not  all  parts  of 
the  world  the  men  are  more  ornamented  than  the 
women,  and  often  in  a  different  manner;  sometimes, 
though  rarely,  the  women  are  hardly  ornamented  at 
all.  As  the  women  are  made  by  savages  to  perform 
the  greatest  share  of  the  worlv,  and  as  they  are  not 
allowed  to  eat  the  best  kinds  of  food,  so  it  accords 
with  the  characteristic  selfishness  of  man  that  they 
should  not  be  allowed  to  use  the  finest  ornaments." 
If  we  turn  back  the  pages  of  history,  we  will  find  that 
man  dressed  himself  equally  as  showily  and  elabo- 

265 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

rately  as  the  vainest  of  women  until  about  a  century 
ago.  As  long  as  slavery  was  the  normal  rule  of  life, 
and  the  ruling  classes  and  the  powerful  lived  en- 
tirely upon  the  labours  of  others;  as  long  as  barons 
kept  their  robber  castles,  and  abbots  and  priors 
"  toiled  not,  neither  did  they  spin  "  man  decked 
himself  out  in  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow,  in 
gorgeous  brocades  of  yellow  or  pink  or  blue,  in  jew- 
elled slippers  and  silk  stockings,  laces  and  furbelows, 
and  he  wore  false  hair  with  powder  in  it.  But  even 
this  simulated  love  of  the  beautiful  could  not  wholly 
humanise  him  for  his  biological  emblem — his  sword 
— dangled  at  his  side. 

There  was  no  lack  of  colouring  in  ancient  Greece, 
when  the  men  met  alone  to  enjoy  their  revels,  for 
they  were  brilliantly  robed,  their  "hair  curled  with 
hot  irons  and  bound  with  fillets  and  wreaths." 
William  of  Malmesbury  complains  of  "the  dissolute 
character  of  the  men  in  the  reign  of  William  II  of 
England,  of  their  wearing  flowing  hair  and  extrav- 
agant robes,"  and  until  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  kings,  courtiers,  and  men  of  wealth  and 
fashion    continued    to    deck    themselves    elaborately. 

It  is  the  changed  conditions  that  forced  man  to 
abandon  his  glorious  raiment,  but  the  vanity  remains 
for  men's  demand  that  the  women  with  whom  they 
are  associated  must  be  weli-gowned  is  inexorable.  It 
will  be  admitted  by  all  women,  that  they  are  trebly 

266 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

careful  about  their  appearance  if  they  are  going  out 
with  a  man,  because  of  his  unwillingness  to  be  seen 
by  his  fellows  with  any  but  the  smartly  apparelled. 
It  is  to  satisfy  him  to  a  large  extent  that  she  decks 
herself  out.  Dress  for  her  is  stock  in  trade,  for 
woman  knows  that  her  success  with  man  depends 
indefinitely  more  on  the  way  her  back  is  covered  than 
on  any  qualities  of  head  or  heart.  This  reversal  of 
the  natural  order  which  put  the  power  of  selection 
into  the  hands  of  man  directed  her  biological  endow- 
ment of  the  love  of  the  beautiful  into  unnatural 
channels  and  debased  it  as  all  her  other  God-given 
qualities  were  debased. 

A  love  of  the  beautiful  was  implanted  in  the  female 
by  the  Creator  when  He  made  the  first  living  thing 
that  propagated  itself.  A  love  of  the  beautiful  was 
the  great  principle  by  which  He  evolved  His  crea- 
tion. A  love  of  the  beautiful  is  evolution.  A  love  of 
the  beautiful  in  the  female  gave  to  the  male  all  his 
distinguishing  physical  qualities,  and  to  man  his  size 
and  muscular  strength.  A  love  of  the  beautiful  in 
one  of  its  manifestations,  order,  organised  society 
and  held  it  together  in  bonds  of  equality,  fraternity 
and  liberty ;  and  a  love  of  the  beautiful  when  man  is 
sufficiently  advanced  to  have  acquired  it,  through 
woman's  influence,  in  such  lasting  form  as  he  has  ac- 
quired, through  the  female,  his  secondary  sexual  char- 
acters, will  make  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth 

267 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

possible,  of  which  the  Bible  speaks  so  much  and  which  is 
no  idle  dream  but  the  end  and  object  of  all  our  strivings. 

This  love  of  the  beautiful  in  woman  is  the  quality 
that  man  has  distorted  and  then  uses  as  a  weapon 
against  her  because  he  has  no  conceDtion  of  its 
divine  office;  he  has  seized  upon  the  husk  but  he 
knows  nothing  of  the  kernel  that  lies  within,  so  to 
him  a  love  of  the  beautiful  is  to  be  unduly  extrava- 
gant in  the  matter  of  personal  adornment.  When  we 
go  back  to  our  animal  ancestors  we  find  that  the 
female  used  her  love  of  the  beautiful,  not  for  her 
own  adornment,  but  for  that  of  others,  and  this  is 
equally  true  of  her  human  descendant.  There  are 
many  more  women  who  find  the  expression  of  this 
quality  in  the  adorning  of  their  homes,  and  who  will 
spend  time  and  labour,  and  practise  personal  self- 
denial  to  attain  a  laudable  gratification  that  can  be 
shared  by  those  they  love.  In  the  same  way  thou- 
sands of  mothers  go  without  that  their  children  may 
be  tastefully  dressed,  and  wives  innumerable  make 
the  old  clothes  that  have  already  done  full  service 
last  another  season  that  their  husbands  may  have 
new  and  not  be  placed  in  painful  contrast  with  their 
felloM^s  among  whom  they  have  to  mingle  daily. 

Who  goes  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth  to  find  the 
diamond  and  ruby,  or  down  into  the  sea  for  the  pearl? 
It  is  not  the  love  of  the  beautiful  that  sends  him.  It 
is   only   to   traffic    with   it — for   gold — and   then   he 

268 


EVIL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DEGRADATION 

says  that  man  has  passed  beyond  the  savage  state 
and  has  ceased  to  wear  bits  of  glass,  but  that  woman 
has  not  emerged  from  it,  and  being  at  best  but  a 
child  grown  up,  that  glittering  baubles  will  always 
please  her  infantile  mind.  But  such  statements  only 
write  down  man's  ignorance  of  his  unspiritual  con- 
dition, for  the  Almighty  manifested  His  infinite 
power,  and  testified  to  the  high  value  He  placed  on 
the  beautiful  as  a  humanising  and  uplifting  influence 
when  He  made  His  beautiful  world  in  all  its  mani- 
festations; and  woman,  blindly,  unconsciously,  but 
none  the  less  traly,  manifests  her  closer  relation  to  the 
divine  when  she  loves  the  beautiful  for  its  beauty. 

The  futile  efforts  that  man  has  made  for  thousands 
of  yeai's  to  fill  a  place  that  he  was  not  equipped  for 
have  failed.  The  Eternal  is  truth  and  every  attempt 
to  subvert  his  plans  by  forcing  untruth  into  the  garb 
of  truth  and  trying  to  make  it  pass  muster  as  such 
has  ended  where  it  only  could  end,  in  ruin.  All 
his  attempts  to  put  the  blame  on  woman  by  making  of 
her  the  scapegoat  for  his  shortcomings  have  ended 
at  length  in  the  discovery  of  the  truth  for  in  the 
words  of  Condorcet  "In  vain  is  it  sought  to  justify 
the  treatment  of  women  by  the  difference  in  their 
moral  sensibilities,  in  their  physical  organisation,  in 
the  strength  of  their  intellects.  This  inequality  had 
no  other  origin  than  the  abuse  of  power  and  it  is  in 
vain  that  men   have   since   sought  to   excuse   it  by 

269 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

sophisms.  If  we  try  to  compare  the  moral  energy 
of  women  with  that  of  men,  taking  into  consideration 
the  necessary  effect  of  the  inequality  with  which  the 
two  sexes  have  been  treated  by  laws,  institutions  and 
customs  and  prejudices,  and  fix  our  attention  on  the 
numerous  examples  that  they  have  furnished  of  con- 
tempt for  death  and  suffering,  of  constancy  in  their 
resolutions  and  their  convictions,  of  courage  and 
intrepidity,  and  of  greatness  of  mind  we  shall  see 
that  we  are  far  from  having  proof  of  their  alleged 
inferiority." 

There  is  no  interest  in  life  that  does  not  affect  her 
as  vitally  as  it  does  him.  Let  him  cease  to  obstruct  and 
having  intelligence  let  him  learn  to  be  wise,  for  he 
needs  her  everywhere  at  his  side,  in  the  counting 
house,  in  the  courts  of  justice,  with  her  hand  on  the 
helm  of  state,  for  God  said,  "it  is  not  well  for  man 
to  be  alone,"  and  the  bloody  finger  of  history  points 
and  says,  "it  is  not  well  for  man  to  be  alone;"  and 
the  down-trodden  mother  of  the  race  says,  "it  is  not 
well  for  man  to  be  alone;"  and  the  cry  of  the  chil- 
dren echoing  down  the  ages  says,  "it  is  not  well  for 
man  to  be  alone ; ' '  and  the  noble  band  of  women,  who, 
heedless  of  the  jeers  and  sneers  of  the  unthinking  and 
unknowing  masses  are  struggling  for  the  uplifting 
of  humanity,  says  man  shall  no  longer  be  alone. 


370 


VIII 
WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

Wherever  and  on  whatever  occasion  the  question 
of  woman  and  man  arises,  the  inquiry  is  always  put 
forth  as  to  what  woman  has  done  for  humanity,  and 
put  forth  by  man  with  absolute  confidence  that  it 
will  lead  to  her  confusion  and  reduce  her  to  silence. 
But  the  question  on  the  part  of  the  man,  and  the 
silence  on  the  part  of  the  woman,  are  alike  due  to  a 
lack  of  knowledge  of  the  past  history  of  the  human 
family.  No  man  would  ever  have  the  temerity  to  put 
the  question  if  he  thought  that  an  answer  could  be 
given  that  would  place  his  sex  in  the  position  of 
debtor,  in  every  respect,  to  woman.  He  would  be 
further  amazed  to  find,  that  it  was  not  necessary  for 
her  to  beg  the  question  by  referring  him  to  his  laws, 
civil  and  religious,  by  which  she  was  reduced  to  a 
state  of  "hewer  of  wood  and  drawer  of  water,"  and 
kept  in  it  for  long  ages,  but  that  an  actual  aiTay  of 
benefits  rendered  can  be  adduced  in  her  behalf,  and 
among  them,  benefits  that  reached  to  a  sphere  that 
he  alone  could  never  have  attained,  and  that,  had  it 
not  been  for  her,  must  have  remained  a  sealed  book 
to  humanity. 

In  order  to  settle  this  question,  we  must  go  back 
once  more  to  the  early  dawn  of  human  life  on  the 

271 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

globe,  and  take  another  peep  at  our  far  away  ances- 
tors, in  that  Eden  where  the  new  species  were  accom- 
modating themselves  to  the  new  existence.  We  must 
also  carry  with  us  a  recollection  of  the  nature  of  the 
female,  or  we  can  refresh  this  memory  by  going 
into  our  barnyard  and  watching  our  domestic 
animals,  when  we  will  find  her,  in  most  cases,  doing 
all  the  work  of  providing  for  the  young.  From  the 
beginning  of  life,  ages  before  the  time  of  the  human 
species,  the  habit  of  work  had  been  fastened  on  the 
female,  and  a  biological  endowment  endures  to  the 
end  of  time.  Man  has  learned  to  work,  woman  was 
bom  a  worker.  It  is  only  to  be  expected  then  that 
woman  would  be  the  mother  of  civilisation,  its  arts 
and  crafts. 

The  great  question  of  life  is  food  whether  in  the 
plant,  the  animal,  or  the  world  of  the  human  family, 
and  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  female  to  provide  it  be- 
cause of  the  love  of  the  mother  for  her  kind.  The 
human  species  first  made  its  appearance  somewhere 
in  the  tropics,  where  nature  provided  fruits  and  nuts, 
but  as  the  race  multiplied  and  was  obliged  to  wander 
forth  over  the  earth,  other  means  of  livelihood  be- 
came necessary,  and  the  pro\ider  had  to  use  her 
ingenuity  to  feed  those  dependent  on  her.  Her  first 
lessons  were  probably  learned  from  the  animals.  She 
saw  them  feed  themselves  and  their  young,  and  her 

272 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

maternal  instinct  made  her  first  an  imitator  and  then 
an  inventor.  She  saw  the  ants,  those  marvellous  pro- 
viders who  knew  the  whole  art  from  Dan  to  Beer- 
sheba,  who  sowed  and  tended  and  reaped,  who  built 
the  first  cold  storage  warehouses,  and  dried  and  pre- 
served and  kept  their  larders  full,  and  with  her 
quick  instinct  she  learned  their  ways. 

She  noted  the  monkeys  and  all  the  other  animals, 
she  saw  the  seeds  they  chose  and  the  food  they 
selected,  she  saw  the  birds  build  their  nests,  and  she 
took  her  cue  from  her  female  ancestors.  But  nature 
had  provided  them  with  instruments  that  she  was 
devoid  of,  the  hen  could  scratch,  and  others  could 
burrow  and  bore,  but  she  had  to  provide  herself  with 
tools,  and  among  her  first  instruments  were  the  dig- 
ging stick  and  the  flint  knife  which  she  hewed  out 
and  shaped  with  her  own  hands.  And  now  the 
farmer  began  her  work.  But  she  had  to  have  a  vessel 
in  which  to  carry  the  seeds,  which  she  had  seen  were 
good  for  food,  and  which  she  was  going  to  plant.  IMany 
a  day  she  had  watched  the  spider  industriously 
weaving  her  web,  so  our  imitator  thought  she  would 
try  her  hand.  She  had  seen  fibrous  plants  which  she 
thought  would  lend  themselves  to  that  kind  of  treat- 
ment, and  she  began  to  plait  and  twist,  and  wind  in 
and  out,  and  soon  she  had  baskets  so  close  and  tight, 
that  she  could  carry  water  in  them. 
18  273 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

Armed  with  her  stick  and  basket  she  began  to  cul- 
tivate, with  her  infant,  if  she  had  one,  tied  on  her 
back.  She  planted  and  tended  and  watered  and 
reaped  her  grain  and  then  she  was  face  to  face  with 
another  problem;  it  had  to  be  milled.  Now  our 
imitator  took  one  step  higher.  The  slowly  increasing 
brain  forces  began  to  co-ordinate  and  woman  became 
an  inventor,  and  the  mortar  and  the  pestle  were  the 
first  result,  sometimes  quarried  out  of  the  rock,  some- 
times made  of  wood.  The  grinding  of  com  has 
always  been  associated  with  women  in  all  lands  and 
climes;  "two  women  shall  be  grinding  at  the  mill'* 
is  a  familiar  pen  picture  which  has  come  down  from 
the  immemorial  past.  She  sifted  and  winnowed  and 
ground,  and  then  baked.  She  was  the  first  miller  and 
built  the  first  granaries,  and  she  tamed  the  cat  to 
catch  the  rat,  that  the  produce  of  her  labour  might 
not  be  lost  to  her  young.  But  com  could  not  be 
raised  without  water,  so  in  regions  where  the  water 
did  not  come  to  her,  she  brought  it.  With  rods  of 
split  bamboo  she  planned  the  first  irrigating  system, 
and  laid  the  foundations  of  the  engineering  princi- 
ple of  gradients,  and  aqueducts;  conduits,  sewers 
and  plumbing  are  its  natural  offspring.  Nor  was  she 
satisfied  merely  with  food,  but  she  sought  variety, 
she  found  how  to  extract  spices  and  sweets,  and  she 
learned  that  the  palm  tree  could  yield  a  drink,  and 

274 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

found  a  way  to  make  it  give  it  up.  Agile  as  her 
Simian  ancestor,  she  climbed  to  the  top,  tapped  the 
tree,  and  suspended  her  vessel  to  catch  the  sap. 

Into  whatever  region  she  wandered,  she  soon  found 
what  plant  or  seed  would  yield  the  staple  food,  and 
what  plants  would  weave.     Whether  or  not  she  dis- 
covered the  art  of  making  fire,  the  stove  and  oven 
were  hers,  and  thoroughly  ingenious  she  was  in  the 
construction  of  them.     But  fire  meant  the  need  of 
vessels  that  would  not  burn,  so  our  Handy  Andy  went 
to  work  to  make  them.    Mother  earth  had  become  her 
familiar  friend  by  this  time;  she  had  worked  with 
her  wet  and  she  had  used  her  dry,  she  had  learned 
some  of  her  properties  and  some  of  her  potentialities, 
and  she  took  her,  and  moulded  her  and  patted  her 
into  shape,  then  dried  and  lastly  burnt  her.     Nor  did 
she  stop  with  the  rude  beginnings  for  mere  utility's 
sake.     Led  on  by  her  divine  gift — the  innate  love  of 
beauty — she    followed    art    for    art's    sake    till    by 
"quarrying,    carrying,    washing,    assorting,    mixing, 
tempering,   modelling,   moulding,   coiling,  smoothing, 
polishing,  shaping — all  with  humble  tools  enough,  but 
with   artistic    instinct,   a  marvellous   knack,   and   an 
educated  eye  that  a  modern  builder  might  envy — the 
savage  potter  finishes  her  vessel"   (Mason)  . 

The  savage  woman  was  as  famous  for  her  weaving 
as  for  her  grinding,  and  she  carried  the  art  to  its 

275 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

highest  perfection.  Step  by  step  she  added  variety 
of  form  and  pattern,  and  stitch  and  braid,  then  vari- 
ety of  colour,  using  at  first  to  procure  this  grasses 
and  plants  of  different  colours,  or  the  upper  and 
under  side  of  the  same  grass  alternately,  and  lastly, 
manufacturing  her  own  dyes  by  extracting  the  juices 
from  vegetables  and  plants,  and  she  combined  with 
her  weaving  the  feathers  that  the  birds  shed,  giving 
play  to  her  economical  bent  as  well  as  to  effect.  The 
crude  material  was  different  in  different  lands  and 
had  to  be  treated  according  to  its  nature.  The 
amount  of  ingenuity  this  required  was  marvellous, 
but  round  and  round  the  globe  wherever  woman  was, 
she  wove.  She  had  no  looms  at  hand  to  assist  her, 
she  had  to  fashion  her  own  implements  which  became 
more  and  more  complicated  as  patterns  were  more 
intricate  and  delicate.  She  imitated  all  the  forms 
and  colouring  of  nature  and  the  daintiest  patterns ; 
the  rarest  stitches  which  the  linen  manufacturer,  the 
carpet  and  cloth  weaver,  and  the  rug  maker  use  all 
emanated  from  the  brain  cells  of  savage  woman. 
Thus  she  laid  the  foundation  of  the  art  of  painting. 
Twines  and  threads  of  sinew  as  fine  as  any  we  use 
to-day,  tent  coverings,  cloths,  every  use  of  leather  and 
every  fur  coat  and  rug  owes  to  her  its  origin.  Otis 
Mason  says  in  his  work  on  "Primitive  Culture"  that 
"If  aught  in  the  heavens  above,  or  on  the  earth  be- 

276 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

neath,  or  in  the  water  imdemeath  wore  a  skin,  savage 
women  were  found  on  examination  to  have  had  a 
name  for  it,  and  to  have  succeeded  in  turning  it  into 
its  primitive  use  for  human  clothing,  and  to  have 
invented  new  uses  undreamt  of  by  its  primitive 
owner. ' ' 

While  woman  was  thus  busy  orginating  and  culti- 
vating the  arts  of  peace  what  was  man  doing?  He, 
too,  was  following  his  biological  bent  and  as  the 
native  Australian  says  "man  hunts,  spears  fish,  kills 
and  sits  down."  The  hunter  killed  his  quarry  but 
with  that  his  work  ended  for  he  did  not  even  bring  it 
home.  That  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  beast  of  burden.  At 
first  she  carried  the  game  on  her  back,  bears,  deer  or 
what  not.  Then  she  made  her  sled  or  cart  and  dragged 
it.  Once  at  her  tent  she  skinned  and  dried  and 
treated  and  tanned  and  tailored.  If  the  skin  was  fur 
she  knew  how  to  handle  it,  if  hair  she  scraped  it  and 
made  leather  and  worked  it  into  harness  and  a  hun- 
dred other  useful  purposes.  She  prepared  the  meat 
for  food  whether  for  immediate  use  or  to  be  preserved 
and  stored.  The  domestic  animals  were  tamed  by 
her  for  she  wanted  milk  for  the  young  and  wool  to 
make  blankets  of  in  cold  climes.  It  is  an  easy  matter 
to  see  how  the  home  and  all  that  it  contained  belonged 
to  the  primitive  woman.  She,  and  she  alone,  by  her 
own  industry  and  ingenuity  called  it  into  being,  and 

277 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

when  the  hunter  returned,  he  came  not  to  his  home 
but  to  mother's  or  wife's,  from  which  she  was  free 
to  order  him  "to  budge"  when  he  refused  even  to 
hunt.  And  as  the  home  was  hers,  so  was  the  giving 
of  the  laws  by  which  communities  were  governed 
given  to  the  older  women  whose  ripe  experience  fitted 
them  to  rule. 

The  first  transportation  service  the  world  ever  knew 
was  woman's  back  and  head,  and  it  is  to-day  over  a 
large  part  of  the  earth  the  chief  or  only  service.  She 
began  by  carrying  her  babe  on  her  back  while  she  dug 
her  field,  then  to  carry  seed  and  water  and  the  game. 
When  she  began  to  use  stone  to  build  her  house  she 
carried  blocks  weighing  two  or  three  hundred  pounds. 
All  the  water  is  carried  on  her  head  in  eastern  lands 
to-day,  and  the  Holland  milkmaid  carries  one  pail  on 
her  head  and  two  others  by  means  of  a  yoke  across 
her  shoulders. 

Wallace  says  ' '  The  Borneo  woman  generally  spends 
the  whole  day  in  the  fields,  and  carries  home  every 
night  a  heavy  load  of  vegetables  and  fire  wood,  often 
for  several  miles  over  rough  and  hilly  paths;  and 
not  unfrequently  has  to  climb  a  rocky  mountain  by 
ladders  and  over  slippery  stones  to  an  elevation  of  a 
thousand  feet.  Besides  this  she  has  to  pound  the  rice 
with  a  heavy  wooden  stamper  which  violently  strains 
every  part  of  her  body.     She  begins  this  kind  of 

278 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

labour  at  nine  or  ten  years  of  age  and  it  never  ceases 
but  with  the  extreme  decrepitude  of  age, ' '  In  Thom- 
son's  "Land  and  the  Book"  he  says  the  Kurdish 
women  get  up  at  midnight  to  climb  the  mountains  to 
bring  down  their  loads  and  adds:  "In  the  early  morn- 
ing I  often  saw  the  women  looking  like  loaded  beasts 
coming  down  the  precipitous  mountain  path,  one 
after  another,  spinning  and  singing  as  they  came.  I 
often  saw  women  with  great  paniers  on  their  backs 
and  babies  on  top  of  these  or  in  their  arms,  going 
four  days  over  that  fearful  Ishtazin  pass,  carrying 
grapes  for  sale  and  bringing  back  grain." 

When  the  wandering  Arabs  are  moving,  the  men 
mount  their  camels  and  laden  with  their  guns  they 
start  leaving  the  women  to  take  down  the  tents,  fold 
and  pack  them,  to  look  after  the  herds  and  do  all  else 
that  is  to  be  done.  A  very  recent  traveller  writes 
that  "In  no  other  place  in  the  world  have  I  witnessed 
such  heavy  work  done  by  women  and  girls  as  in  the 
villages  in  the  Himalayas.  From  early  morning  till 
late  at  night  little  girls,  young,  middle-aged,  and  old 
women  bend  under  loads  of  stone,  bricks,  lumber,  and 
earth,  as  they  trudge  up  the  steep  mountain  roads 
to  buildings  that  are  in  course  of  construction,  or 
to  remove  granite  boulders  that  have  been  blasted 
out  to  make  a  foundation  for  some  structure.  Not  less 
than  one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds  must  be  carried 

279 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

at  each  load  to  insure  the  daily  wage  of  five  cents 
for  a  girl  and  eight  cents  for  a  woman.  I  met  a 
slender  child  of  ten  years  bending  under  a  basket  of 
bricks  that  she  was  carrying  up  the  mountain  side. 
It  was  held  on  her  back  by  a  strap  drawn  across  the 
forehead;  the  pupils  of  her  eyes  were  drawn  out  of 
place  by  the  strain  of  the  loads  she  carried.  She 
placed  her  basket  on  the  ground;  two  gentlemen  of 
our  party  tried  to  lift  it,  which  together  they  did  with 
difficulty.  I  shall  never  forget  this  frail  little  form, 
bare-footed,  thinly  clad,  and  underfed  as  she  read- 
justed her  load  and  trudged  up  the  steep  hill  beside 
two  old  women  similarly  laden"  (Mrs.  Helen  M. 
Gougar) . 

The  story  of  women  as  beasts  of  burden  as  it  is 
going  on  to-day  might  be  carried  on  ad  infinitum. 
Every  one  who  visits  Europe  knows  the  heavy  bur- 
dens the  women  bear.  The  German  peasant  women 
carry  packs  on  their  backs  that  would  outweigh  the 
knapsacks  of  many  soldiers.  There  is  no  form  of 
work  that  life  demands  that  woman  has  not  worked 
at ;  she  has  borne  her  part  in  mines,  foundries,  rolling 
mills  and  factories.  She  is  sailor,  fisherwoman, 
hunter,  hod  carrier,  builder  and  stone  worker,  and 
she  especially  differs  from  man  in  that  she  can  turn 
her  hands  to  a  dozen  trades  and  do  them  equally  well 
as  he  does  one.    Almost  every  woman  to-day  who  is 

280 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

bringing  up  a  family  and  doing  her  own  work  is  the 
mistress  of  many  occupations.  She  is  home  maker, 
housekeeper,  dressmaker,  sempstress,  laundress,  baker, 
cook,  scrubwoman,  nurse,  preserver,  and  often 
milliner,  nor  does  that  tell  the  whole  tale,  while  her 
husband  can  follow  but  one  calling.  Two  reasons 
have  been  given  by  man  to  account  for  his  putting  on 
woman  the  heaviest  and  most  disagreeable  labour  while 
he  reserved  for  himself  such  as  could  be  done  by  the 
horse  or  bullock.  One  is,  that  being  bought  she  must 
work,  and  the  other,  that  the  Creator  intended  that 
she  should  suffer  much  for  the  sin  of  Eve  in  seducing 
Adam, 

The  question  is  no  longer  what  has  woman  done  foi' 
humanity  but  what  has  she  not  done?  Where  would 
the  race  be  if  it  had  not  been  for  her  ceaseless  activity, 
her  versatility,  her  resourcefulness,  her  inventive 
ability,  her  helpfulness,  her  love  of  beauty,  her  self- 
sacrifice,  her  devotion,  her  loyalty,  her  love.  There 
is  no  field  in  human  activity  in  which  man  has  been 
the  pioneer  except  in  the  devising  and  inventing  of 
weapons  of  destruction.  Every  craft  that  is  prac- 
tised to-day,  every  mechanical  principle  was  evolved 
by  primitive  woman.  When  she  wove  her  patterns 
with  unfailing  exactitude  she  gave  the  first  lessons  in 
arithmetic.  When  she  made  figures,  squares,  parallel- 
ograms and  polygons  she  elucidated  geometry.    In  her 

281 


THE  ADVAXCE  OF  WOMAN 

familiarity  with  plants  she  learnt  their  medicinal 
properties  and  laid  the  foundation  of  therapeutics. 
In  her  quarryings  among  the  rocks  to  make  her  imple- 
ments she  learnt  what  uses  they  could  be  put  to  and 
which  would  or  would  not  bear  the  action  of  heat. 
She  thus  laid  on  a  firm  foundation  the  basis  of  all 
arts,  of  agriculture,  manufacturing,  engineering, 
science,  medicine,  transportation,  and  government. 
She  ever  was  and  is  the  patron  of  religion,  not  be- 
cause, as  man  says,  she  needed  something  to  lean 
upon,  but  because  of  her  gift  of  love,  that  slender  but 
golden  thread  that  connects  earth  with  heaven,  and 
she  was  made  to  suffer  for  it  by  the  unspiritual  sex, 
by  being  hunted  as  a  sorceress  and  burned  as'  a  witch. 
When  man  took  over  the  reins  in  his  hands  he  found 
a  sub-structure  solidly  laid.  All  he  did  was  to  build 
on  top,  but  he  is  a  monopolist  by  nature,  so  he  crushed 
woman  down  and  claimed  the  whole  and  thoroughly 
believes  that  he  did  it  all.  But  man  is  only  the  father 
of  militarism.  Such  a  measure  of  civilisation  as  we 
have  to-day  is  wholly  woman's  gift,  whether  she  did 
it  directly  with  her  own  hands  and  head,  or  whether 
indirectly,  through  her  influence  over  man  by  sub- 
duing his  spirit  and  guiding  his  footsteps  into  the 
ways  of  peace.  In  all  that  represents  true  progress 
the  world  deteriorated  from  the  time  of  the  patri- 
archate till  the  twelfth  century  of  the  Christian  era 

282 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

when  woman,  in  a  slight  degree,  began  once  more  to 
assert  herself  as  "the  balance  wheel  of  the  biological 
system. ' ' 

It  is  in  his  weakness  that  man  shows  his  strength, 
in  the  fact  that  he  responds  to  the  slightest  influence 
of  woman,  and  that,  as  that  influence  grows  in 
strength,  he  sinks  into  her  hands,  and  is  swayed  and 
moved  and  governed  and  led  by  her  decrees;  in  the 
fact  that  every  man,  so  long  as  he  is  ordinarily  nor- 
mal, is  under  the  influence  of  a  woman  in  one  rela- 
tionship or  another  and  cannot  live  without  it.  He 
seeks  her  as  the  moth  seeks  the  candle,  by  a  law  as 
inherent  in  his  nature  as  the  law  of  gravitation  in 
the  physical  world.  As  the  Creator  used  the  female 
to  call  the  male  into  physical  being,  so  he  endowed 
woman  with  the  qualities  that  could  civilise  and  then 
spiritualise  him,  and  only  through  her  and  by  her 
can  he  reach  his  highest  potentialities.  In  every 
regard  she  is  his  biological  superior  and  he  himself 
proclaims  it  unceasingly  and  yet  does  not  know  it; 
"the  hand  that  rocks  the  cradle  is  the  hand  that  moves 
the  world  "  is  his  proverbial  acknowledgment  of  it. 
The  statement  that  woman  has  nothing  to  show  as 
done  by  her  for  the  advancement  of  society  is  based 
upon  the  period  of  her  oppression  and  exclusion  and 
is  as  untrue  as  it  is  discreditable  to  man.  What  he 
has  done  he  accomplished  only  after  she  had  paved 

283 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

and  prepared  and  pointed  out  the  way,  but  even  his 
superstructure  was  built  by  her  labours  and  could 
not  have  been  done  without  them.  His  very  fighting, 
which  he  never  ceased  following,  rested  on  her  back 
and  head  and  arms  and  drew  its  support  from  the 
ceaseless  toil  of  women  and  babies  and  the  looms  in 
the  kitchen.  It  was  the  peasant  women  of  France  who 
largely  paid  the  indemnity  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
War  in  1871  with  the  money  taken  from  the  toes  of 
stockings,  and  it  is  the  women  of  that  land  who  have 
made  her  one  of  the  richest  countries  per  capita.  It 
is  largely  due  to  the  labour  of  the  German  pack 
woman  "who  is  driven  from  the  age  of  fourteen  till 
she  reaches  her  second  childhood,"  that  Germany  in 
thirty  years  has  become  a  great  industrial  power,  and 
it  reflects  no  credit  on  the  German  nation  that  it  holds 
its  women  in  so  low  esteem.  But  Germany  reaps  its 
reward,  for  except  as  an  industrial  and  military 
power  she  has  no  standing  among  her  sister  nations; 
no  romance,  no  history,  no  poetry,  no  art,  no  beauty, 
no  gallantry,  no  tenderness,  no  social  eclat  is  asso- 
ciated in  the  foreign  mind  with  her.  Her  level  is 
beer,  the  sword,  and  the  Hausfrau,  so  true  is  it  that 
the  measure  of  the  standing  of  a  nation  is  the  stand- 
ing of  its  women. 

It  is  woman  everywhere  that  makes  man's  progress 
possible  by  lifting  from  him  the  multitudinous  bur- 

284 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

dens  of  living  and  leaving  him  free  to  follow  his  one 
calling.  If  woman  can  show  little  scientific  research, 
few  pictures  or  works  of  art  or  sculpture  or  books 
written,  let  us  learn  from  M.  Jacques  Lourbet  the 
reason :  '  *  Let  no  one  insist  longer  on  the  modest  con- 
tribution of  woman  to  the  creative  work  of  art  or 
science.  She  suffers  to  this  day  from  the  ostracism 
of  centuries  that  man  has  imposed  upon  her,  from 
the  network  of  exclusions  and  prohibitions  of  every 
kind  in  which  she  has  been  enveloped  and  which  have 
ended  in  producing  that  apparent  inferiority,  which 
is  not  natural  but  purely  hereditary."  In  America 
in  1855  there  were  only  six  colleges  for  higher  educa- 
tion open  to  women,  and  at  a  convention  of  the  teach- 
ing profession,  the  generous  American  men  ' '  who  spoil 
their  women"  are  on  record  as  saying  that  "Culture 
for  women  should  never  develop  into  learning.  Only 
an  unwomanly  woman  would  try  to  become  learned, 
and  she  would  try  in  vain,  as  she  had  not  the  mental 
ability  of  a  man."  But  man  used  her  labours  un- 
sparingly to  get  the  equipment  that  enabled  him  to 
do  anything  that  he  has  done  and  at  the  same  time 
drew  his  inspiration  from  her. 

As  a  ruler  woman  has  played  no  insignificant  part 
in  history  although  her  opportunities  have  been  lim- 
ited owing  to  the  world's  view  of  man's  supremacy. 
"The    kingdom    of    France"    says    the    chronicler 

285 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

Froissart,  "is  of  such  great  nobility  that  it  must  not 
be  suffered  to  pass  by  succession  to  the  female ' ' ;  and 
another  adds,  ''The  daughters  of  France  are  perpet- 
ually debarred  from  the  crown  by  custom  and  by 
special  law  of  the  House  of  France,  founded  on  the 
pride  of  the  French,  who  could  not  bear  to  be  ruled  by 
their  own  women  folk."  In  view  of  the  fact  that 
France  has  had  more  queen  regents  than  any  other 
country  of  Europe,  and  that  her  kings  ran  her  to  ruin 
and  destruction,  for  never  was  there  more  complete 
absolutism  than  under  Louis  XIV,  these  statements 
bring  us  face  to  face  with  another  of  those  ridiculous 
situations  in  which  man's  intellectual  grandeur  has 
turned  a  somersault  in  deference  to  his  vanity.  The 
writer  who  said  that  women  were  ''  debarred  by  cus- 
tom and  special  law  "  used  man's  prerogative  to 
distort  a  fact  in  support  of  his  conception  of  male 
superiority,  for  every  one  knows  that  the  Salic  law, 
which  in  its  beginijing  was  merely  a  tribal  rule  to 
prevent  property  from  passing  out  of  the  gens,  was 
expressly  enacted  because  of  the  ambition  of  an  uncle 
who  wanted  the  throne  in  place  of  the  rightful  heir, 
his  niece,  and  who  took  advantage  of  her  being  a 
woman  to  wrest  it  from  her. 

The  emperor  Charles  V,  the  most  astute  ruler  of 
his  day,  a  man  devoid  of  sentiment  when  his  interests 
were  at  stake  had  such  faith  in  the  ability  of  women 

286 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

as  rulers  that  he  appointed  three  successively  as 
regents  of  the  Netherlands  and  the  last  one  held  it 
till  her  death.  Had  Margaret  of  Parma  not  been 
interfered  with  she  would  have  settled  the  differences 
there  with  less  bloodshed. 

From  the  Norman  Conquest  in  1066  to  1801,  Eng- 
land had  four  great  sovereigns,  two  of  whom  were 
women.  Her  present  greatness  is  due  to  the  political 
acumen  and  sagacity  of  Elizabeth.  When  that  young 
woman  succeeded  to  the  throne,  England  was  a  third 
if  not  a  fourth  rate  power.  She  was  on  the  verge  of 
bankruptcy  and  in  the  throes  of  a  religious  revolution 
and  her  population  was  only  four  millions.  A  more 
unpromising  condition  it  would  be  hard  to  find.  Turn 
where  she  would  Elizabeth  found  difficulties  on  every 
hand.  But  after  a  reign  of  forty-four  years,  during 
which  only  eleven  parliaments  were  called,  a  rule, 
therefore  which  was  personal,  she  left  the  country 
occupying  the  foremost  rank  in  Europe,  and  she  left 
her  mark  so  indelibly  upon  it,  that  it  has  never  lost 
its  place.  She  settled  the  religious  question  abso- 
lutely, she  paid  off  the  debts  of  the  ci"own  without 
burdening  her  people,  she  kept  war  without  its  bor- 
ders, and  she  made  her  mistress  of  the  sea.  The 
privileged  classes  feared  her,  the  middle  and  lower 
classes  loved  her.  She  was  never  ruled  by  a  minister ; 
Cecil  was  her  adviser  but  he  could  not  control  her. 

287 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

History  records  that  he  frequently  wrung  his  hands 
in  despair  and  even  wept  because  his  mistress  per- 
sisted in  following  the  dictates  of  her  own  mind  in 
opposition  to  his  wishes  and  judgment. 

In  an  experience  of  her  early  life  when  Elizabeth 
was  only  fifteen,  she  baffled  and  humbled  the  wisest 
diplomat  and  ministers  of  Edward  YI,  when  they 
were  trying  to  entangle  her  into  an  admission  of 
a  knowledge  of  a  conspiracy.  Alone,  without  an 
adviser  or  even  a  friend  to  counsel  her,  she  completely 
outwitted  the  man  who  had  grown  old  in  the  man- 
agement of  affairs,  and  who  lived  in  her  home  for 
weeks,  with  his  wife  as  her  sole  companion,  in  the 
hope  that  in  an  unguarded  moment  the  young  girl 
would  commit  herself.  The  girl,  who  at  that  tender 
age  could  so  conduct  herself  through  a  delicate,  and 
extremely  trying  and  dangerous  position,  did  not  need 
in  her  maturity  to  put  herself  and  the  affairs  of  her 
country  into  the  hands  of  any  man. 

For  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  she  came  to 
the  throne  the  voice  of  culture  had  been  silent  in  the 
land,  but  under  her  firm  rule  which  secured  peace, 
and  her  personal  influence,  for  she  was  not  only  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  and  accomplished  women  of  the 
age,  but  she  was  the  intellectual  equal  of  the  most 
intellectual  men  of  Europe,  literature  burst  its  bonds 
and   flooded   the  land    with    its    classics.     Immortal 

288 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

names  had  their  birth  then  and  the  Elizabethan  Age 
will  shine  with  a  radiant  glory  till  the  end  of  time. 

Nor  was  it  a  mere  coincidence  that  the  next  great 
burst  of  intellectual  grandeur  was  in  the  reign  of  the 
late  Queen  Victoria.  The  field  in  this  case  was 
broader,  literature,  art,  science,  and  splendid  accom- 
plishments in  inventions  and  public  utilities — tele- 
graphs, cables,  railways,  postal  service,  and  innu- 
merable others.  Previous  to  her  no  king  that  ever  sat 
on  the  English  throne  ever  accomplished  the  blood- 
less revolutions  that  Queen  Victoria  did.  In  every 
department  of  the  national  life  her  reign  was  one  of 
true  progress.  In  fact  real  progress  can  scarcely  be 
said  to  have  begun  till  her  advent  to  the  throne. 

No  man  ever  expressed  the  result  of  woman's  in- 
fluence more  concisely  than  iMr.  Buckle.  He  says, ' '  So 
far  from  women  exercising  little  or  no  influence  over 
the  progress  of  knowledge,  they  are  capable  of  exer- 
cising and  have  actually  exercised  an  enormous 
influence ;  that  this  influence  is,  in  fact,  so  great  that 
it  is  hardly  possible  to  assign  limits  to  it,  and  that 
great  as  it  is,  it  may  with  advantage  be  still  further 
increased.  This  influence,  moreover,  has  been  ex- 
hibited, not  merely  from  time  to  time,  in  sudden,  rare, 
and  transitory  ebullitions  but  that  it  acts  by  virtue 
of  certain  laws  inherent  in  human  nature;  and,  that, 
although  it  works  as  an  undercurrent  below  the  sur- 
19  289 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

face  and  is  therefore  invisible  to  hasty  observation,  it 
has  already  produced  the  most  powerful  results  and 
has  affected  the  shape,  character,  and  amount  of  our 
knowledge. ' ' 

Nothing  illustrates  the  truth  of  his  remarks  more 
fully  than  the  nature  of  the  progress  made  during 
the  rule  of  the  late  Queen.  It  has  already  been  re- 
marked that  all  of  the  social  sciences  were  born  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  well  as  many 
others,  while  those  of  an  earlier  birth  had  remained 
stationary  from  the  time  they  were  promulgated,  some 
two  thousand  years  ago.  Fighting  man  had  no  time 
or  thought  for  anything  beyond  the  sword,  t^at  was 
his  whole  conception  of  governing,  but  the  arts  of 
peace  have  never  flourished  side  by  side  with  shot  and 
shell;  "man  cannot  serve  two  masters,"  construction 
and  destruction  cannot  walk  hand  in  hand,  the  things 
of  mind  and  spirit  cannot  advance  while  the  physical 
is  being  racked  and  torn.  This  is  the  philosophy  of 
the  reigns  of  those  two  great  women,  Elizabeth  and 
Victoria,  they  gave  peace  with  confidence,  they  gov- 
erned with  a  firm  and  steady  hand,  the  rule  of  force 
gave  way  to  the  rule  of  mind,  and  the  magical  effect 
of  that  relationship,  little  analysed,  or  regarded,  of 
woman  as  the  handmaiden  of  God,  His  chosen  agent 
to  control,  subdue,  and  govern  men's  passions,  raised 
up  womanhood  and  humanised  men's  hearts. 

290 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

Nothing  else  can  account  for  the  almost  miraculous 
change  that  came  over  the  spirit  of  life  in  the  western 
world.  Manners  softened  everywhere,  violence  slunk 
away,  the  treatment  of  the  criminal,  whom  a  misgov- 
erned society  had  made,  became  more  merciful,  the 
labouring  classes  were  no  longer  trampled  under  foot, 
but  rose  to  such  a  sphere  of  influence  in  the  affairs 
of  the  nation  that  one  of  their  number  now  is  a 
cabinet  minister.  Who  would  have  imagined  such 
a  change  possible  just  one  hundred  years  ago!  Con- 
trast these  pictures :  John  Stuart  Mill  writing  in  1869 
said,  ''Less  than  forty  years  ago  in  England  men  still 
held  by  law  human  beings  in  bondage  as  saleable 
property  and  might  kidnap,  carry  off  and  literally 
work  them  to  death." 

The  English  court  under  the  Georges  was  a  cess- 
pool of  iniquity ;  under  the  gracious  Victoria  no 
shadow  of  scandal  ever  soiled  its  purity,  and  every 
court  in  Europe  and  social  life  everywhere  was  placed 
on  a  higher  plane  by  a  woman's  rule.  Her  reign 
marked  a  new  era  in  history.  This  old  worn  planet 
turned  a  new  mile-stone  and  has  taken  on  fresh  life, 
full  of  promise  for  the  future,  and  her  son,  the  late 
deeply-lamented  King  Edward  VII,  folloAved  so 
nobly  in  her  footsteps  that  after  a  short  reign  of 
little  more  than  nine  years  he  y)ci,ssed  to  his  rest, 
hailed  by  the  whole  civilised  world  with  a  title  of 

291 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

"Peacemaker,"  the  noblest  and  most  glorious  that 
ever  has  been  accorded  to  any  sovereign  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  patriarchate.  His  life  and  his  spirit 
have  stamped  themselves  so  deeply,  not  merely  on  the 
British  Empire,  but  on  humanity,  that  militarism  has 
received  its  death  blow,  and  every  sovereign  every- 
where will  have  to  emulate  his  example. 

When  we  look  at  the  herculean  task  that  Queen 
Christina,  the  Regent  of  Spain,  undertook  and  how 
nobly  she  conducted  her  heavy  load  for  seventeen 
years  under  the  most  difficult  circumstances,  the 
question  of  woman's  ability  to  guide  can  only  be 
asked  by  the  ignorant  and  unthinking.  But  the  high- 
est testimony  is  borne  by  John  Stuart  Mill  because  of 
the  country  and  its  attitude  to  woman.  He  believed 
that  the  place  of  ruler  is  woman 's  field  par  excellence, 
and  says,  "Especially  is  it  true  if  we  take  into  consid- 
eration Asia,  as  well  as  Europe.  If  a  Hindoo  prin- 
cipality is  strongly,  vigilantly,  and  economically 
governed;  if  order  is  preserved  without  oppression; 
and  if  cultivation  is  extending  and  the  people  pros- 
perous, in  three  cases  out  of  four  that  principality  is 
under  a  woman's  rule.  This  fact,  to  me  an  entirely 
unexpected  one,  I  have  collected  from  a  long  official 
knowledge  of  Hindoo  governments.  There  are  many 
instances :  for  though  by  Hindoo  institutions  a  woman 
cannot  reign,  she  is  legal  regent  of  a  kingdom  during 

292 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

the  minority  of  the  heir,  and  minorities  are  frequent, 
the  lives  of  male  rulers  being  so  often  prematurely 
terminated  through  the  effects  of  inactivity  and  sexual 
excesses.  When  we  consider  that  these  princesses  have 
never  been  seen  in  public,  have  never  conversed  with 
any  man,  not  even  of  their  own  family  except  behind 
a  curtain,  that  they  do  not  read  and  if  they  did  there 
is  no  book  in  their  language  which  can  give  them  the 
smallest  instruction  in  public  affairs,  the  example  they 
afford  of  the  natural  capacity  of  women  for  govern- 
ment is  very  striking." 

This  testimony  from  so  unimpeachable  a  witness 
surely  proves  that  her  gift  for  iniling  is  biological. 
When  we  add  to  this  the  well  known  fact  that  Aus- 
tralia and  New  Zealand — two  commonwealths  where 
woman  for  twenty  years  has  had  equal  voice  with 
man  in  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  the  state — 
have  far  outstripped  all  other  countries  in  sociologi- 
cal conditions,  no  further  argument  is  needed  to  show 
that  there  can  be  no  real  progress  in  the  higher  life 
where  woman  is  excluded. 

When  we  enter  the  field  of  philanthropy  the  scope 
of  woman's  activities  is  so  bewildering  that  we  can 
only  give  a  casual  glance  at  them.  In  the  very  word 
itself  is  found  her  influence  on  language  for  it  is  a 
comparatively  new  addition  to  it.  There  was  no  need 
for  such  a  word  for  there  was  no  such  conception  till 

393 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

she  began  to  inculcate  the  doctrine  of  love.  The  highest 
language  had  attained  before  was  what  expressed 
merely  the  coldly  intellectual ;  the  warm,  the  vitalis- 
ing, the  spiritualising  are  her  gifts  to  it.  For  ages, 
doubtless,  woman  had  been  carrying  on  her  private 
ministrations  to  those  in  need,  helping  her  over-bur- 
dened sister  in  times  of  sorrow  and  sickness,  but  it 
was  not  till  the  Victorian  era  that  her  influence  over 
man  became  great  enough  for  her  to  undertake  any 
organised  relief  on  a  large  scale,  and  strangely  enough 
she  used  her  efforts  first  to  mitigate  the  sufferings  of 
him  who  had  so  long  abused  her. 

When  Florence  Nightingale  took  her  little  band  of 
women  to  the  Crimea  she  had  no  predecessors.  The 
path  of  war  was  beaten  into  solid  granite  by  the  cease- 
less march  of  armies  during  the  centuries  but  the 
path  of  mercy  had  to  be  hewn  out  of  the  trackless 
forest  and  a  woman  did  it.  Centuries  of  fighting  had 
come  and  gone  but  sympathy,  love,  service  was  the 
new  Gospel  of  woman  and  bandages  for  the  open 
wounds,  tears  for  the  suffering,  and  words  of  comfort 
to  light  up  the  dark  "Valley  of  the  shadow  of  death" 
when  succour  was  in  vain,  came  from  the  heart  of  a 
woman.  Hospitals,  homes  for  the  aged,  the  friend- 
less, the  deaf,  the  dumb,  the  blind,  humane  and  anti- 
cruelty  societies  are  all  woman's  work.  We  can  all 
remember  the  ferocity  with  which  inhuman  men  beat 
their  horses  through  whose  patient  toil  they  earned 

294, 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

their  daily  bread,  for  the  male  is  instinctively  cruel. 
As  soon  as  a  boy  can  throw  a  stone  he  kills  the  birds 
and  the  frogs  in  the  pond  just  for  the  pleasure  of 
inflicting  pain.  The  brutality  of  teachers  as  depicted 
by  Dickens  in  an  age  upon  which  we  have  just  barely 
turned  our  backs  all  tell  the  nature  of  the  ruling 
power.  But  as  woman  has  moved  on  in  influence  the 
children's  day  has  come.  No  thinking  person  whose 
childhood  began  forty  years  ago  can  help  comparing 
conditions  as  they  were  then  with  the  present  atti- 
tude; "suffer  the  little  ones  to  come  unto  me"  has 
become  a  living,  vital  influence  under  the  fostering 
care  of  the  mother  of  the  race. 

Visitors  to  Morocco  and  other  eastern  lands  will 
find  no  charitable  institutions,  no  homes  for  the  old, 
unfortunate,  sick'  or  suffering,  no  efforts  expended  to 
make  life  a  pleasant  stopping  place  by  the  wayside. 
On  the  contrary  the  prisoners  are  left  in  gaols  to  starve 
to  death  unless  they  have  friends  to  care  for  them 
or  the  western  visitors  send  them  food  from  the 
hotels.  In  India  women  received  no  medical  treat- 
ment, for  no  man  dared  approach  them  and  their  own 
sex  was  steeped  in  ignorance,  until  the  vice-royalty 
of  the  late  Lord  Dufferin,  when  Lady  Dufferin  issued 
an  appeal  for  missionaries  to  have  medical  training. 
Such  is  the  condition  of  life  where  woman  has  no  i 
voice  and  can  exert  no  influence. 

It   is    only    of    very    recent   years    that   youthful 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

offenders  among  ourselves  were  deemed  worthy  of  the 
regard  of  the  authorities,  and  that  only  when  the 
women  forced  them  to  provide  separate  quarters  for 
them  that  they  might  not  be  herded  with  those  growm 
old  in  crime.  The  outcome  of  that  movement  is  the 
juvenile  court,  and  how  reluctantly  that  was  accom- 
plished is  evidenced  by  the  action  of  an  eastern  city 
when  the  women  petitioned  the  Council  to  make  this 
provision.  It  was  denied  because  the  city  fathers  re- 
garded it  as  the  project  of  a  lot  of  ' '  foolish,  silly,  sen- 
timental, childless  club  women."  These  men  had  not 
sufficient  economic  judgment  to  look  at  the  situation 
on  its  practical  side.  Viewing  the  whole  subject  of 
rule  from  the  level  of  expense,  there  is  no  question 
whatsoever  that  millions  of  hard-earned  tax  money 
are  wasted  annually  because  of  man 's  incapacity.  He 
lays  the  charge  of  extravagance  on  woman,  for  a  scape- 
goat is  certainly  a  necessity  for  him,  but  nature's 
biological  provider  was  furnished  with  the  instinct 
of  economy  and  it  is  hers  to-daj^  just  as  it  ever  was. 
Nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  difference  in  the 
point  of  view  of  man  and  woman  and  the  result  of 
their  methods  than  the  following  incident.  Until 
very  recently  women  prisoners  were  searched  by 
police  officers.  This  was  felt  to  be  indecent  by  many 
women  and  the  Woman 's  Christian  Temperance  Union 
of  America  took  up  the  question  of  having  matrons 

296 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

appointed  to  look  after  and  be  responsible  for  female 
offenders.  It  met  with  great  opposition  and  one  of 
the  reasons  given  was  that  only  muscular  men  could 
handle  such  women.  A  truly  biological  argument ! 
The  union,  however,  was  so  determined  in  the  matter, 
that  in  one  city  where  the  poverty  of  the  municipality 
was  pleaded — a  municipality,  by  the  way,  that  is  in 
a  chronic  state  of  canker  from  "graft" — they  paid 
the  matron's  salary  for  a  year  themselves  in  order  to 
effect  the  reform. 

The  matron  who  told  the  incident  said  the  police- 
men had  opposed  her  because  they  claimed  that  she 
had  not  strength  enough  to  search  or  manage  these 
belligerent  women,  adding,  "Well,  if  you  could  see 
one  woman  who  comes  in  here  three  or  four  times  a 
year,  'Old  Sal'!  They  told  me  it  always  took  four 
policemen  to  bring  her  into  a  cell,  and  usually 
they  got  their  faces  scratched.  One  morning  these 
policemen  stood  there  radiant,  saying:  'We  have  got 
her  this  morning,  and  we  would  like  to  see  you  bring 
her  in ;  if  you  can  do  that  we  will  not  oppose  you 
any  more. '  The  chief  offered  to  send  two  men  to  take 
care  of  me.  I  said,  *  I  don 't  want  them. '  So  they  let 
me  go  alone.  As  I  came  to  the  cell  I  rapped  with  the 
key,  and  opened  the  door,  and  there  in  the  long,  dark, 
narrow  cell  crouched  the  woman,  looking  more  like  a 
wild  beast  than  a  human  being.    She  was  just  ready 

297 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

to  spring,  as  she  was  expecting  the  policemen,  and 
cried  out,  'Who  are  you?'  'I  am  your  friend.'  *No, 
you  are  not;  I  haven't  got  any  friends.  I  thought 
something  was  queer  when  somebody  rapped  at  the 
door;  I  never  had  that  done  in  all  the  times  I  have 
been  in  here  before.  Who  are  you  anyway?  a  police- 
man?' 'No,  I  am  a  policewoman.'  'Oh,  I  didn't 
know  they  had  any  such  things.' 

"I  looked  down  into  her  eyes  and  called  her  by  her 
last  name  with  a  ]\Irs.  before  it.  '  Who  told  you  that ; 
I  have  not  heard  it  before  for  forty  years.'  I  said, 
'You  know  you  have  got  to  go  into  court  in  a  minute 
and  you  are  not  fit  to  go,'  and  I  began  to  smooth  her 
hair,  I  took  a  pin  out  of  my  own  hair;  she  hadn't 
a  button  nor  a  pin  nor  a  fastening  of  any  kind  to 
her  clothes;  she  sat  there  tugging  and  holding  them 
together,  and  as  I  tried  to  arrange  her  garments  she 
said:  'Tell  me  what  you're  up  to,  tell  me  what  you 
mean?'  By  and  by,  looking  into  her  eyes,  I  said: 
'Do  you  remember  the  first  time  you  were  ever  in  a 
police  station?'  'Oh,  God;  don't  I  remember  it!' 
'How  old  were  you?'  'I  wasn't  sixteen.'  'How  old 
are  you  now?'  'I  am  more  than  sixty.'  'How  many 
times  have  you  been  in  these  places?'  'Oh,  I  don't 
know ;  I  guess  God  don 't  know,  it  is  so  often, '  '  Look 
here,  Sallie,  if  I  had  been  there  that  first  morning — 
do  you  remember  how  j'^ou  felt?'    'Ah,  I  was  almost 

298 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

scared  to  death;  I  cried  all  night.'  'Sallie,  if  I  had 
been  there  then  and  had  wiped  the  tears  off  your  face, 
if  I  had  put  your  hair  up  and  put  my  hands  on  your 
shoulders  as  I  have  now,  what  would  it  have  meant 
to  you?  '  *  Oh,  I  would  never  have  got  back  again, 
but  nobody  ever  cared.' 

"  *  Now,  let  me  tell  you,  Sallie,  I  want  you  to  do 
something  for  me ;  I  want  to  get  a  woman  to  go  into 
these  places  to  care  for  the  women  in  the  way  I  want 
to  care  for  3^ou;  wouldn't  you  like  to  do  it  to  help 
me?'  'I  would  do  anything  T  could  to  help  you,'  she 
said.  'Now,  the  policemen  say  I  can't  bring  you  into 
court  this  morning.'  'They  don't  know  what  you 
can  do.'  'Will  you  go  quietly  with  me?'  'I  will  do 
anything  you  tell  me  to.'  Then,  after  a  minute,  I 
said  to  her,  'Sallie,  do  you  remember  your  mother?' 
'Oh,  God,  don't  talk  about  it;  she's  dead  long  ago. 
I  suppo.se  she  died  before  I  was  seven  year.s  old.' 
'Was  she  a  good  mother  to  you,  Sallie?'  'The  best 
that  a  child  ever  had.'  'Did  she  ever  pray  with  you, 
Sallie?'  'Oh,  don't!  You  will  kill  me  if  you  talk 
about  it.'  'Sallio,  I  am  going  to  pray  with  you,'  and 
with  my  hands  upon  the  poor  head  I  lifted  up  my 
voice  to  Him  who  is  not  willing  that  she  should  per- 
ish— that  any  .should  perish. 

"Oh,  how  pleasant  it  seemed  to  us  that  morning; 
it  seemed  to  me  that  instead  of  my  hands  upon  her 

299 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

tempted,  tired  head  there  were  the  hands  that  had 
the  nail-prints  in  them.  She  said,  'I  feel  like  another 
woman.'  'They  are  calling  us  now;  we  must  go. 
You  will  remember,  now,  what  you  have  promised 
me?'  'I  will  remember.'  I  said  to  her,  'Shall  you 
take  my  arm  or  shall  I  take  yours?'  She  looked  me 
over  and  said,  '"Well,  I  am  about  three  times  as  large 
as  you ;  I  guess  you  'd  better  take  mine. '  So  we  went 
into  the  court.  They  said  they  would  have  cheered 
us  if  it  had  been  proper.  A  policeman  swore,  a  round 
oath  and  said  I  had  bewitched  Sallie,  but  one  keener 
than  the  policeman  said,  'She's  got  the  touch  of  the 
Master.'  " 

It  would  be  idle  to  attempt  to  follow  woman  into 
all  the  ramifications  of  her  various  activities  of  help- 
fulness, service  and  love  which  includes  all  living 
things,  man,  child,  and  beast,  and  every  variety  and 
form  of  need.  The  fact  that  of  her  own  native  in- 
stinct, as  soon  as  she  dared,  she  directed  her  feet 
and  hands  to  the  service  of  others  tells  its  own  story. 
What  has  been  lost  to  life  by  her  exclusion  from  all 
spheres  of  influence  and  by  the  dragging  down  of 
her  nature  can  never  be  reckoned.  When  the 
Almighty  made  man  He  never  intended  that  His 
fjeautiful  earth  should  be  disfigured  by  prison  bars, 
and  bolts  and  locks,  by  fetters  and  chains  and  dun- 
geons, nor  was  it  in  the  days  of  the  matriarchate. 

300 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

Misrule  called  into  being  vicious  passions,  and  "man's 
inhumanity  to  man  makes  countless  millions  mourn." 

What  appalling  sums  of  money  are  spent  annually 
to  punish  crime  while  thousands  of  people  in  every 
large  cily  are  living  in  conditions  not  fit  for  beasts 
and  the  breeding  of  criminals  is  thus  continued.  If 
man  had  started  factories  for  the  express  purpose 
of  producing  and  perpetuating  this  class  he  could 
not  have  done  it  more  effectually.  Yfith  his  right 
hand  he  created  the  conditions  that  with  his  left  he 
tries  to  cure  by  reformatories,  juvenile  courts  and 
parental  schools.  But  an  enslaved,  degraded  woman- 
hood is  the  cause  of  it  all.  He  "sowed  the  wind," 
and  assuredly  "he  is  reaping  the  whirlwind." 

Go  into  any  well-stocked  library  and  you  will  find 
a  long  list  of  books  written  about  woman;  written 
from  every  conceivable  point  of  view,  and  her  con- 
dition in  every  land  and  age  depicted,  but  seek  for  a 
corresponding  catalogue  about  men  and  you  will  find 
that  it  does  not  exist.  What  does  this  mean?  Was 
the  Creator  so  incompetent  that  Tie  made  the  mother 
of  the  human  family  to  be  a  problem?  Wliy  should 
her  weaknesses  and  moods  and  tempers  be  a  perennial 
subject  of  discussion  by  newspaper  and  magazine? 
The  female  is  not  a  problem  in  the  plant  or  animal 
world.  All  that  comes  to  maturity  and  is  of  use  in 
the  plant  world  is  female,  all  the  business  of  life  in 

301 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  animal  world  is  done  almost  entirely  by  the 
female  and  she  holds  supreme  sway.  Did  the  Maker's 
hand  lose  its  cunning  when  He  made  the  human 
female  ? 

No,  man  forced  her  into  an  unnatural  condition, 
he  forced  upon  her  unnatural  views  of  life,  he  dis- 
torted and  contorted  and  prohibited  till  he  reduced 
her  to  a  state  of  inanity  and  almost  imbecility,  he 
made  of  her  a  problem  that  he  is  utterly  incapable  of 
solving,  and  she  herself  is  so  psychologically  victim- 
ised in  consequence  that  as  a  sex,  if  it  was  not  for  the 
"saving  remnant"  she  would  scarcely  be  able  to  work 
out  her  own  salvation,  and  so  little  does  man  know 
what  he  has  done  that  every  step  of  her  upward 
path  is  hailed  with  jeers  and  flings  and  epithets,  for 
"old  maid,"  "blue-stocking,"  and  "suffragette"  are 
merely  male  terms  of  disapproval  for  women  whom 
they  cannot  control. 

Woman's  crowning  work  for  humanity  remains  to 
be  told.  On  the  subject  of  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity on  the  condition  of  woman  there  are  three 
different  points  of  view.  Man  claims  that  her  present 
status  is  due  to  it;  woman  says  that  it  placed  her  in 
complete  subjection  to  man,  and  left  her  not  his  slave 
but  his  obedient  servant;  and  the  third  view  is,  that 
Christ  was  so  indefinite  that  little  could  be  gathered 
either  from  His  teaching  or  His  conduct  as  to  what, 

302 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

He  really  meant.  The  subject  is  therefore  controver- 
sial. Meanwhile  the  really  pertinent  questions  have 
never  been  asked;  namely,  What  man's  version  of 
Christianity  owes  to  woman ;  What  Christ's  Chris- 
tianity has  lost  because  woman  was  not  allowed  to 
lend  her  voice  to  its  interpretation  ? 

In  trying  to  see  what  Christ  really  did,  let  us  begin 
with  the  third  statement  on  the  controversial  side, 
namely  that  His  teachings  were  vague  and  indefinite 
and  that  He  left  the  subject,  so  to  speak,  in  the  air. 
Much  of  the  misunderstanding  and  false  teaching  that 
has  so  delayed  the  progress  of  mankind  in  the  higher 
life  is  due  to  finite  wisdom  trying  to  measure  infinite 
wisdom  and  finite  methods  being  attributed  to  the 
infinite.  The  Eternal  we  are  told  is  all  powerful 
and  can  by  one  word  of  command  accomplish  His  will. 
He  sent  His  son  into  the  world  clothed  with  the  same 
power  so  that  He  turned  water  into  wine  and  fed  a 
multitude  with  five  loaves  of  bread  and  two  fishes. 

A  Christianity  has  been  presented  to  mankind  for 
their  acceptance  based  on  miracles,  miracles,  too,  that 
for  the  most  part  were  worked  only  on  the  low  plane 
of  creature  wants  and  the  physical.  If  Christ  was  a 
miracle  worker  why  did  He  not  convert  the  hearts  of 
men  ?  He  could  as  easily  have  done  that  as  to  open 
the  eyes  of  the  blind.  But  He  not  only  did  not  do  it 
but  He  Himself  fell  a  victim  to  the  envy  and  jeal- 

303 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

ousy  of  the  governing  and  priestly  classes.  Whether 
or  not  the  divine  Man  worked  those  miracles  that  are 
recorded  is  not  a  matter  for  discussion  here,  nor  in- 
deed does  it  matter  at  any  time  or  in  any  case,  the 
point  that  it  is  needful  to  grasp,  is  that  the  Bible,  old 
and  new,  presents  a  supreme  governing  power  work- 
ing through  and  by  the  natural  law  of  cause  and  effect. 
Above  all  things  else  God  is  a  God  of  system,  of 
order,  of  justice ;  otherwis<?  lie  could  not  be  a  God  of 
perfect  love.  First  the  sowing,  then  the  reaping,  and 
only  if  we  sow  plentifully  do  we  reap  plentifully. 
This  is  a  natural  process.  Christ  came  into  a  world 
where  woman  was  despised  and  where  men  were 
taught  that  she  was  the  source  of  all  evil.  He  knew 
perfectly  that  this  was  subversive  of  His  Father's 
creative  work,  and  that  the  human  race  would  never 
be  spiritually  enlightened  but  would  grovel  on  tin- 
low  plane  of  the  material  so  long  as  woman  was  abused 
and  without  influence.  But  He  wrought  no  miracle 
to  lift  her  up,  He  did  not  even  choose  her  among 
His  disciples,  because  He  knew  it  would  be  useless. 
God's  plan  as  to  mankind  was  to  create  a  being  who 
by  the  natural  process  of  evolution  would  work  out 
his  own  salvation.  He  endowed  the  two  sexes  amply 
for  the  work  He  set  before  them,  but  He  made  them 
free  Mall  agents  to  work  out  the  plan  in  accordance 
with  His  instructions,  or  to  accept  the  consequence 
should  they  depart  from  them. 

304 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

Being  a  God  of  system  He  planted  the  seed,  being 
a  God  of  justice  He  grants  the  harvest  in  accordance 
with  the  kind  of  seed  planted,  and  being  a  God  of 
Almighty  power,  through  His  immutable  law  of 
cause  and  effect  He  will  compel  man  at  length  to 
accept  His  will,  however  much  he  may  experiment  and 
try  to  engraft  his  views  on  the  divine  fiat.  Christ's 
whole  ministry  was  only  a  seed  time.  He  taught  by 
example  and  precept  and  He  limited  Himself  to  such 
teaching  only  as  had  to  do  with  righteousness  and  sin. 
Again  and  again  His  enemies  tried  to  entrap  Him  into 
expressions  of  opinion  on  legal  or  governmental 
affairs  that  might  be  construed  into  criticisms  that 
could  be  used  to  His  undoing,  but  He  rose  to  heights 
so  far  above  them  that  He  silenced  them.  His  mis- 
sion He  said,  "was  to  call  sinners  to  repentance"  and 
the  only  laws  He  gave  were,  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and 
with  all  thy  mind.  This  is  the  first  and  great  com- 
mandment. And  the  second  is  like  unto  it,  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  These  two  laws  are 
all-embracing  and  are  sufficient  for  time  and  eternity. 

With  such  instruction  there  can  be  no  charge  of 
indefiniteness.  His  omnipotence  is  shown  in  the  com- 
prehensive simplicity  of  His  doctrine.  He  was  no 
meddler  with  the  daily  life  of  man.  He  did  not  dic- 
tate what  he  should  eat  or  what  he  should  drink,  or 
20  305 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

what  he  should  read  or  how  he  should  amuse  himself. 
He  who  clothed  and  embroidered  His  earth  so 
gorgeously  with  a  multitudinous  variety  of  form  and 
colour  did  not  rant  about  woman's  extravagance  or 
love  of  beauty.  He  set  no  limitations  to  pleasures  and 
enjoyments  except  as  they  were  limited  by  the  law  of 
love  from  God  and  man.  On  the  few  occasions  on 
which  He  did  express  Himself  on  earthly  institutions 
it  was  to  increase  liberty.  He  did  not  observe  nor 
did  He  require  His  disciples  to  observe  the  strict 
regulations  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  but  on  the  con- 
trary He  set  an  example  and  taught  a  greater  liberty 
and  pleaded  that  people  should  be  guided  by  common 
sense  and  do  those  things  that  it  was  expedient  for 
them  to  do. 

He  ignored  the  Jewish  doctrine  of  unclean  foods 
and  ablutions  and  taught  that  it  was  what  came  out 
of  the  mouth  and  not  what  went  in  that  defiled.  He 
pleaded  for  childhood  and  He  struck  off  the  fettei'S 
that  bound  woman  and  set  her  free.  He  made  her 
co-equal  with  man  in  the  home,  ''they  twain  are  one 
flesh;"  He  made  her  co-equal  before  the  law  and 
declared  one  moral  code  for  both,  ' '  he  that  is  without 
sin  among  you,  let  him  first  cast  a  stone."  He  bade 
her  seek  the  cultivation  of  mind  and  spirit,  which 
man  had  prohibited  her  from  doing,  by  His  reproval 
of  Martha  when  she  complained  that  her  sister  was 

306 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

leaving  all  the  work  for  her,  by  saying  ''Martha, 
Martha,  thou  art  careful  and  troubled  about  many 
things:  But  one  thing  is  needful;  and  Mary  hath 
chosen  that  good  part,  which  shall  not  be  taken  away 
from  her." 

There  is  no  indefiniteness  about  these  teachings, 
nothing  could  be  more  explicit,  and  His  teachings 
breathe  the  largest  liberty  compatible  with  the  highest 
righteousness.  He  gave  absolute  freedom  to  every 
being  that  walked  this  earth,  freedom  with  love  for 
"love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law."  Every  nation  that 
has  violated  this  fundamental  law  by  enslaving  its 
fellow-man  regardless  of  colour  or  condition  has  paid 
a  heavy  penalty.  With  the  Maker  of  all  the  earth 
there  is  no  black  nor  white  nor  yellow,  they  are  all  one 
in  Christ  Jesus  and  man  must  bend  to  His  will.  Amer- 
ica, less  than  fifty  years  ago  fought  one  of  the 
bloodiest  wars  that  ever  stained  the  pages  of  history 
for  its  violation.  The  Dutch  South  African  republics 
and  Spain  had  to  yield  up  their  territory  for  abusing 
their  fellow-man.  The  other  nations  called  them  wars 
of  aggrandisement  and  commercial  greed,  but  God 
uses  men's  frailties  to  work  His  ends  of  righteousness 
and  justice.  All  nations  and  all  religions  abused 
woman.  The  Canons  of  the  Christian  church  follow- 
ing Paul's  teachings  nearly  choked  Christ's  seed  when 
at  the  Council  of  IMacon  they  discussed  whether  she 

sor 


,  THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

had  a  soul,  and  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  ninth 
century  they  denied  to  her  all  further  ministrations 
in  the  church.  Paul's  teachings  then  had  full  effect, 
woman  was  reduced  to  absolute  silence  and  what  hap- 
pened? Then  followed  the  Dark  Ages,  from  800  to 
1100,  the  darkest  period  in  European  history  which 
was  pierced  at  length  by  the  Renaissance. 

Man's  claim  that  Christianity  as  he  interpreted  it 
lifted  up  woman  to  her  present  sphere  is  based  on  the 
purest  sophistry  and  is  to  be  classed  with  his  claim 
that  he  made  his  civil  laws  to  protect  her.  But 
granting  for  argument's  sake  that  his  deformed 
Christianity  had  this  power  which  he  claims  for  it, 
then  he  must  also  grant  that  Christianity  stands  for 
the  highest  womanhood.  Why  then  has  he  obstructed  ? 
WTiy  did  he  hold  out  against  opening  his  universities 
to  her  until  she  forced  their  doors,  and  why  does  he 
now  claim  that  to  extend  the  ballot  to  her  would  be 
to  admit  an  evil  of  untold  possibilities?  In  the  first 
case  he  feared  for  his  dinner,  in  the  second  he  fears 
for  his  power,  so  he  resorts  to  sophistry  and  tells  her 
that  she  is  reserved  for  higher  things  and  that  politics 
are  too  filthy  for  her  disregarding  the  fact  that  where 
the  greatest  filth  exists  that  is  where  she  is  most 
needed. 

Woman's  claim  that  Christianity  worked  her  an 
evil  is  borne  out  by  the  Epistles,  by  her  still  being 

308 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

kept  largely  in  silence  in  the  churches,  by  the  "obey" 
of  the  marriage  service  and  by  what  immediately 
followed  upon  the  Pauline  teachings.  Rome,  then 
still  the  mistress  of  the  world,  early  in  the  Christian 
era  granted  her  equality.  "Led  by  their  theory  of 
natural  law,  the  jurisconsults  had  at  this  time 
assumed  the  equality  of  the  sexes  as  a  principle  of 
their  code  of  ethics,"  but  Christianity  stepped  in  and 
undid  what  Rome  had  done.  All  writers  who  are 
qualified  to  speak  on  this  subject  agree  that  legisla- 
tion based  on  the  Canon  law  dealt  harshly  with  woman. 
The  fathers  of  the  early  church  represented  her  as 
all  the  earlier  creeds  had  done,  as  a  source  of  evil  and 
a  menace  to  man. 

It  cannot  be  wondered  at  that  men  inherited  this 
belief,  so  persistently  was  it  taught  by  the  priestly 
castes  for  ages,  and  as  they  monopolised  all  learning 
they  were  the  only  guides  the  public  had.  It  is  this 
blind  acceptance  of  old  beliefs  that  has  perpetuated 
most  of  the  ill  in  the  world.  Mankind  is  conservative 
and  indolent,  it  is  so  much  easier  to  accept  what  is 
irrational  than  to  think  out  the  truth  and  face  the 
opposition  with  which  it  is  always  met.  Christianity 
is,  therefore,  to  some  extent,  the  daughter  of  its  pred- 
ecessors so  closely  and  inseparably  are  the  different 
phases  of  human  thought  and  action  bound  together. 
There  is  no  past  so  remote  that  it  has  not  become  a 

309 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

part  of  the  present  and  that  it  will  not  go  on  forever. 
"Woman's  debt  to  Christianity,  as  it  has  been 
taught,  is  much  less  than  has  been  claimed  for  it, 
while  it,  on  the  other  hand,  owes  much  to  her.  All 
through  Christ's  ministerial  career  He  associated  Him- 
self closely  with  women.  On  His  human  side  He  was 
dependent  on  them  as  all  men  are  and  on  His  spirit- 
ual side  He  received  from  them  support,  consolation 
and  an  understanding  of  His  nature  and  mission,  that 
His  chosen  disciples  were  totally  incapable  of  giving 
to  Him,  even  to  the  very  last.  It  is  no  detraction  of 
His  divinity  to  say  that  when  He  took  upon  Himself 
the  nature  of  man  that  He  also  took  upon  Him  some 
of  the  weaknesses  of  the  flesh.  The  physical  man 
hungered  and  suffered  and  wearied,  and  the  spiritual 
man  must  have  groaned  many  a  time  at  the  almost 
utter  hopelessness  of  the  effort  to  make  those  men 
grasp  His  doctrine  sufficiently  to  perpetuate  His 
ministry.  Indeed,  His  groans  on  one  or  two  occasions 
found  audible  utterance,  for  He  expressed  His  aston- 
ishment at  their  dulness  by  asking,  "Are  ye  so  with- 
out comprehension  also?"  and  again  "Perceive  ye 
not  yet,  neither  understand,  have  ye  your  hearts  yet 
hardened,  having  eyes,  see  ye  not,  and  having  ears, 
hear  ye  not,  and  do  ye  not  remember?  .  .  .  How  is 
it  that  ye  do  not  understand?"  And  to  Philip  who 
on  one  occasion  was  spokesman  for  the  twelve  he  said, 

310 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

"Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you  and  yet  hast 
thou  not  known  me?" 

But  how  was  it  with  woman?  From  the  very  be- 
ginning she  understood  Him,  guided  by  her  intuition, 
her  deep  insight  which  abuse  had  not  wholly  obliter- 
ated she  recognised  the  divine  in  Him.  She  needed 
no  years  of  instruction  to  inform  her,  for  from  the 
outset  of  His  ministry  to  the  time  when  the  world 
saw  Him  no  more,  she  clung  to  Him,  ministered  unto 
Him,  gave  of  "her  substance  to  Him,"  honoured  and 
revered  Him,  satisfied  if  she  might  but  "touch  the 
hem  of  His  garment,"  anointed  His  feet  with  oint- 
ment and  wiped  them  with  her  hair.  No  service  was 
too  lowly  for  her  if  she  could  but  do  Him  reverence, 
no  honour  too  high  to  bestow  upon  Him,  no  sacrifice 
too  great  to  make  for  Him,  and  in  all  the  trying 
scenes  of  His  life,  in  His  death  and  burial  she  stood 
faithful. 

Not  one  word  of  criticism,  not  one  sneer  or  jeer, 
not  one  word  of  doubt  is  on  record  as  made  by  a 
woman  against  Him.  She  wept  and  sorrowed  and 
mourned,  but  she  had  no  voice  in  the  land  or  the  laws, 
and  she  would  have  been  scorned  if  she  had  dared  to 
raise  her  voice  to  ask  that  Jesus  be  set  free  instead 
of  Barabbas.  Even  the  wife  of  the  Roman  governour, 
who  had  no  part  and  probably  no  interest  in  the 
quarrel  of  the  rival  religious  Jewish  factions,  with 

311 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

her  woman's  intuition,  warned  her  husband  not  to 
give  judgment  against  that  "just  man."  But  be- 
cause woman  was  powerless,  because  she  was  of  no 
more  account  than  her  sister  of  Morocco  to-day,  the 
greatest  tragedy  that  the  world  ever  saw  or  ever  will 
see  was  enacted  on  Calvary. 

Woman  while  He  was  on  earth  and  walked  among 
men  received  His  esoteric  message,  but  His  chosen 
disciples  whom  He  had  laboured  so  hard  to  instruct, 
did  not  get  beyond  the  exoteric  message  until  after 
His  ascension,  when  the  Holy  Ghost  descended  upon 
them  on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  Among  those  disciples 
there  was  but  one  who  was  spiritually  minded,  but 
even  he  was  not  equal  in  grace  to  Mary  Magdalene. 
Of  the  others,  one  was  a  traitor  and  one  a  sceptic. 
In  the  supreme  hour  of  His  life  they  were  not  suffi- 
ciently in  sympathy  with  Him  to  watch  for  an  hour. 
At  the  last  supper  so  little  did  they  understand  the 
import  of  Avhat  was  happening  or  the  awful  solemnity 
of  the  occasion  that,  "there  was  also  a  strife  among 
them,  which  of  them  should  be  accounted  greatest," 
and  when  He  went  into  the  garden  of  Gethsemane 
and  leaving  the  disciples  to  await  His  return  He 
selected  three  to  go  with  Him  and  be  near  Him  in 
His  hour  of  agony,  He  told  them  that  His  "soul  was 
exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto  death,"  and  said 
"Tarry  you  here  and  watch  with  Me,"  and  He  went 

312 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

a  little  further  to  be  alone  with  His  God,  and  when 
He  returned  He  found  them  asleep.  How  much  of 
unspeakable  sorrow  must  those  words  have  contained 
that  He  addressed  to  them!  "What,  could  you  not 
watch  with  Me  one  hour!"  and  "They  wist  not  what 
to  answer  him."  Again  He  went  away  and  again 
returned  to  find  them  sleeping,  and  still  a  third  time, 
and  He  saw  the  hopelessness  and  said  "Sleep  on  now 
and  take  your  rest." 

Three  years  had  not  been  enough  to  give  those  men 
keen  perception,  or  to  awaken  in  them  a  spark  of  that 
divine  sympathy  that  bears  the  sorrows  of  others. 
The  nearest  Peter  could  approach  to  it — and  he  was 
one  of  those  selected  three — was,  an  hour  later,  to 
draw  his  sword  and  strike.  Surely  the  Betrayed  Man 
must  have  grieved  within  Himself!  But  had  He 
selected  at  random  any  throe  women  from  among  the 
crowds  that  followed  Ilim  and  taking  them  with  Him, 
said  to  them  that  His  "soul  was  exceeding  sorrow- 
ful," would  He  have  had  to  ask  them  to  Avatch  with 
Him.  No.  There  would  have  been  tears  for  His  tears 
and  souls  too,  that  were  "exceeding  sorrowful," 
and  this  it  is  that  exactly  measures  the  difference 
between  man  and  woman.  With  the  one,  love  and 
its  manifestations,  sympathy,  is  biological,  with  the 
other  it  is  acquired.  There  can  be  no  argument  about 
the  relative  superiority  of  the  sexes  if  the  Gospels 

313 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

are  read  aright.  There  can  be  no  question  about  what 
woman  stands  for,  for  "he  who  runs  may  read.'" 

One  of  the  twelve  betrayed  Him  and  the  others 
thought  only  of  their  own  safety,  "and  they  all  for- 
sook Him  and  fled."  Peter  afterwards  seems  to  have 
got  up  enough  courage  to  follow  Him  "afar  off," 
but  it  was  curiosity  that  led  him  "to  see  the  end," 
and  as  soon  as  he  was  identified  as  one  of  His  fol- 
lowers he  "swore  and  cursed  and  denied  it."  All 
through  His  trial  not  a  disciple  stood  by  Him,  when 
He  was  being  led  to  the  place  of  crucifixion  not  a 
disciple,  but  "There  followed  Him  a  great  company 
of  people,  and  of  women" — not  worthy  of  being 
accounted  people — ' '  which  also  bewailed  and  lamented 
Him, ' '  and  the  last  words  He  addressed  in  a  public  way 
were  to  them  on  that  occasion:  "Turning  unto  them" 
He  said  "Daughters  of  Jerusalem,  weep  not  for  me." 

The  only  disciple  who  was  present  at  the  crucifixion 
was  St.  John,  but  women  "who  had  followed  Him 
from  Galilee  were  there."  They  could  not  bear  to 
leave  Him  for  they  lingered  on  into  the  night  and 
were  the  only  ones,  who,  together  with  Joseph  of 
Arimathea  and  possibly  Nicodemus,  knew  where  the 
body  was  laid.  They  remained  that  they  might  know, 
for  they  wanted  to  embalm  Him.  Then  they  hastened 
away  to  grind  and  prepare  the  spices,  for  they  must 
not    break    the    Jewish    Sabbath    which    was    fast 

314 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

approaching,  but  as  soon  as  it  was  over  at  midnight 
of  the  following  day  they  started  back  to  the  sepulchre, 
to  perform  that  last  mission  of  love,  wondering  by 
the  way,  who  would  roll  away  the  stone  from  the  door. 
But  when  they  found  the  tomb  empty  and  the  angel 
who  was  there  reminded  them  that  Christ  had  told 
them  that  He  would  rise  again  on  the  third  day  they 
believed  and  were  satisfied.  The  great  fact  of  the 
Resurrection,  was,  therefore,  first  announced  to 
woman,  first  by  the  angel  and  then  the  risen  Lord 
Himself  appeared.  He  did  not  appear  to  any  of  His 
disciples  till,  by  His  command  and  that  of  the  angel, 
they  had  been  told  by  woman  of  the  Resurrection. 

There  was  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of  those  women 
that  it  was  the  Master  Himself  whom  they  had  seen 
and  spoken  to,  but  when  they  told  the  disciples 
"their  words  seemed  to  them  as  idle  tales  and  they 
believed  them  not."  Though  all  that  had  happened 
had  been  foretold  to  them  by  Christ  they  were  so 
slow  to  believe  that  He  "upbraided  them  with  their 
unbelief  and  hardness  of  heart  because  they  believed 
not  them  which  had  seen  Him  after  He  was  arisen." 
The  first  two  of  His  band  to  whom  He  appeared 
walked  and  talked  with  Him  for  some  distance  and 
did  not  recognise  Him.  It  was  not  till  they  had 
stopped  for  the  night  and  "sat  at  meat"  and  "He 
took  bread,  and  blessed  it,  and  brake,  and  gave  to 
them,"  that  they  knew  Him.     They  went  and  told 

315 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  others  and  while  they  were  relating  it  "Jesus, 
Himself  stood  in  the  midst  of  them  and  said  unto 
them,  "Peace  be  unto  you."  But  they  were  terrified 
and  affrighted,  and  supposed  that  they  had  seen  a 
spirit.  And  He  said  unto  them,  "Why  are  ye 
troubled?  and  why  do  thoughts  arise  in  your  hearts? 
Behold  my  hands  and  my  feet,  that  it  is  I  myself; 
handle  me  and  see;  for  a  spirit  hath  not  flesh  and 
bones,  as  ye  see  me  have.  And  while  they  yet 
believed  not  for  joy,  and  wondered.  He  said  unto 
them,  Have  ye  here  any  meat?  And  they  gave  Him 
a  piece  of  broiled  meat  and  of  an  honeycomb.  And 
He  took  it  and  did  eat  before  them.  .  .  .  Then  opened 
He  their  understanding  that  they  might  understand 
the  Scriptures."  Thus  hardly  did  these  men  accept 
a  spiritual  fact  for  which  they  had  been  three  years  in 
special  training,  a  fact  of  which  woman  was  convinced 
in  a  moment  because  she  shared,  to  the  extent  of  mater- 
nal love,  in  His  divinity.  With  her  the  seed  had  been 
implanted  and  once  there  nothing  could  destroy  it. 
There  is  a  marked  parallel  between  the  conduct  of 
the  Son  and  the  creative  work  of  the  Father  which, 
in  the  case  of  the  Great  First  Cause  could  not  be 
merely  incidental.  He  created  the  female  first  and 
working  through  her  as  His  agent  He  created  the 
male.  Her  connection  with  the  divine  Architect  was 
direct  and  consequently  she  had  some  spiritual'  and 
altruistic  endowment.    Man's  connection  was  mediate 

316 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

and  his  moral  and  spiritual  qualities  Avere  to  come  to 
him  through  the  influence  of  woman.  For  this  rea- 
son she  was  given  the  power  of  selection  and  the  power 
of  ruling.  With  maternal  love  and  intuitive  insight 
there  was  little  danger  that  her  rule  would  be  an 
abuse  of  power,  and  the  Edenic  legend  and  condi- 
tions as  represented  in  the  early  Homeric  poems,  and 
other  testimony  to  the  same  effect  that  comes  from 
countless  different  sources,  all  point  to  her  ability  to 
do  her  God-given  work.  But  muscle  subverted  God's 
plan  with  the  consequences  which  we  have  seen.  When 
Christ  came  He  sought  by  His  teachings  and  example 
to  restore  her  to  her  former  position.  By  revealing 
His  Resurrection  first  to  her,  and  using  her  as  the 
means  of  announcing  to  the  disciples  and  the  world 
the  triumph  of  the  power  of  Light  over  the  powers 
of  Darkness,  He  put  her  in  the  chief  place  in  the 
second  dispensation,  as  His  father  had  done  in  the 
beginning.  He  is  represented  as  the  Son  of  a  woman, 
but  not  of  an  earthly  man  and  His  life  shows  that  He 
inherited  none  of  the  distinguishing  qualities  of  man; 
His  gentleness  and  strength,  His  firmness  and  love  are 
those  of  woman  as  she  came  from  the  hand  of  her 
Maker  and  which  centuries  of  degradation  had  not  de- 
stroyed, as  her  conduct  to  the  Man  of  Peace  indicates. 
All  through  the  Gospels  the  biological  woman 
stands  out  clear  and  distinct  from  the  biological  man. 
Her  recognition  of  divinity  in  the  Man,  her  love,  her 

317 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

sjrmpathy,  her  unshaken  loyalty,  her  devotion,  her 
self-sacrificing  desire  to  serve  Him  in  every  way  she 
could  devise,  her  fearlessness  in  clinging  to  Him 
whom  the  rabble  was  reviling,  her  unwillingness  to 
give  Him  up  even  after  the  grave  had  seemed  to 
swallow  Him,  her  almost  instantaneous  acceptance 
of  His  Resurrection  by  falling  on  her  knees  and  hold- 
ing Him  by  the  feet  and  worshipping  Him.  If  noth- 
ing else  had  ever  been  written  the  whole  story  of  the 
plan  of  the  Creative  Mind  is  written  there,  the  story 
of  its  subversion  for  a  time  by  man,  and  the  final 
determination  of  the  Maker  of  the  Universe  to  make 
His  will  be  done  by  working  through  her,  the  only 
power  on  earth  He  could  use  to  work  out  her  own 
salvation  and  the  salvation  of  mankind. 

The  early  Christian  church  associated  women  in  its 
ministry  as  its  Founder  had  done.  The  immediate 
influence  of  His  attitude  towards  her  could  not  be 
overlooked.  Moreover  the  struggling  creed  in  a  hostile 
world  needed  her,  and  man  has  never  failed  to  make 
use  of  her  when  she  could  be  of  service  to  him.  In 
the  beginning  immediately  after  the  crucifixion  when 
the  revulsion  of  feeling  won  people  over  to  the  new 
religion,  the  church  grew,  as  we  learn  from  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  by  leaps  and  bounds.  But  sterner 
days  were  before  it,  when  the  new  generation  that 
knew  not  Christ  nor  Pontius  Pilate  had  arisen  and 
the  spectacular  and  personal  gave  place  to  the  theoret- 

318 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

ical  and  invisible,  and  when  the  old  creed  gathering 
its  force  anew,  determined  to  crush  the  heresy,  it 
needed  all  of  woman's  devotion  to  nurse  it  through 
the  swaddling  clothes  period. 

As  it  became  more  and  more  organised  on  a  worldly 
basis,  as  the  Pauline  theories  became  engrafted  upon 
it  in  which  marriage  was  decried  and  celibacy  up- 
held and  woman  relegated  to  silence,  subjection, 
■obedience  and  inferiority,  she  was  gradually  driven 
out  from  its  ministrations  till  finally  everything  was 
forbidden  to  her  and  she  was  not  even  allowed  to  sing 
in  its  services.  But  though  the  church  of  Christ,  so- 
called,  reviled  her  and  put  her  under  the  ban  she 
continued  as  a  sex  to  uphold  its  teachings,  to  main- 
tain its  precepts,  and  in  her  faltering,  ignorant  way 
to  stand  for  what  was  just  and  right,  humanising  and 
merciful.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  had  it  not 
been  for  her  the  little  of  righteousness  that  for  cen- 
turies was  left  in  it  would  have  disappeared  and  it 
would  have  tottered  to  its  fall.  Even  to-day  the 
churches  might  almost  close  their  doors  if  it  were  not 
for  her.  Preachers  occupy  the  pulpits,  but  in  reality 
the  women  do  the  work  of  the  congregation,  and  the 
cloth  would  not  hold  their  positions  for  thirty  days 
if  it  were  not  for  them.  To  Christianity,  therefore, 
as  it  has  been  interpreted,  woman  is  a  small  debtor  if, 
indeed  the  balance  does  not  incline  to  the  other  side. 

319 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

Christ's  Christianity  was  based  on  love;  love  to 
God  and  love  to  others  *'as  thyself."  We  have  only 
to  recall  what  the  civil  laws  in  the  leading  countries 
were  at  that  time  to  see  on  what  barren  soil  such  a 
doctrine  fell  when  woman  was  excluded.  We  have 
only  to  turn  a  page  to  see  how  His  own  people  treated 
Him  who  came  to  them  with  the  message  "of  peace 
and  good-will  to  men,"  we  have  only  to  remember 
that  the  earth  was  full  of  violence,  that  nation  warred 
against  nation,  tribe  against  tribe,  and  clan  against 
elan,  that  slavery  was  everywhere,  that  women  were 
bought  and  sold  and  widows  burnt  on  funeral  pyres, 
that  Roman  fathers  had  the  right  of  life  and  death 
over  their  children,  that  female  infants  were  put  to 
death  by  thousands  annually,  to  realise  that  love, 
outside  of  the  mother  love,  was  almost  unknown.  The 
governing  classes,  a  handful  of  the  population,  held 
supreme  command  in  every  land  and  the  spirit  which 
guided  them  was  one  of  unmitigated  selfishness  and 
of  cruelty.  For  nineteen  hundred  years  after  the 
doctrine  of  liberty  and  love  had  been  promulgated 
slavery  continued  and  every  species  of  torture  that 
the  mind  could  conceive  of  was  inflicted  by  cultured 
and  Christian  men  on  their  fellows. 

The  church  having  cleared  its  skirts  of  woman 
"because  of  her  impurity  and  inherent  wickedness" 
was  free  to  work  its  own  will  and  to  teach  its  own 
Christianity.    It  organised  itself  as  the  state  had,  but 

320 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

more  firmly.  Setting  itself  up  as  the  successor  and 
representative  of  Christ  and  His  teachings,  claiming 
to  hold  the  keys  of  heaven  and  hell  it  wound  itself 
inexorably  round  the  lives  of  men  and  enslaved  them 
soul  and  intellect.  It  held  up  before  men's  eyes  not 
the  love  of  Christ,  but  the  terrors  of  hell  and  eternal 
damnation.  Christ's  viee-gerents  were  not  infre- 
quently men  held  in  thrall  by  the  basest  passions, 
bloody,  cruel  tyrants  who  wielded  the  sword  with  the 
skill  of  veterans,  who  devised  soul-sickening  tortures 
for  the  body  and  following  the  soul  to  the  other  world 
doomed  it  to  eternal  torments  in  the  name  of  a  God 
of  love.  At  best,  they  were,  too  frequently,  but 
skilled  statesmen  and  politicians  who  held  their  fin- 
gers over  the  political  chess  board  of  Europe,  and 
who  could  move  more  subtly  than  their  purely 
temporal  opponents,  because  of  the  occult  power  they 
claimed  to  wield.  Cunning,  too,  was  man's  Chris- 
tianity for  it  held  the  masses  faithful  and  loyal  by 
a  judicious  admixture  of  severity  and  indulgence.  It 
had  studied  biology  enough  for  its  own  needs,  so  it 
winked  at  sin,  as  long  as  its  own  safety  was  not  in- 
volved and  sold  indulgences  and  absolutions  for  cur- 
rency and  bought  heaven.  Truly  it  was  a  royal  path 
for  sinners  with  the  "hall  mark,"  the  magic  talisman 
called  Christ  upon  it! 

From  the  time  of  the  renaissance  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  woman  began  to  work  her  way  slowly  out  of 
31  SSI 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  blackness  that  her  exclusion  from  the  ministra- 
tions of  the  church  had  brought  upon  her,  and  the 
effect  of  her  influence,  little  as  it  was,  begins  to  be 
seen  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when 
men  began  to  demand  from  the  church  the  right  of 
private  judgment.  That  was  the  key-note  of  the 
Eeformation.  That  was  the  leaven  she  had  mixed  with 
the  dough.  The  history  of  that  appalling  struggle, 
fought  in  the  name  of  Christ  and  about  His  love  for 
man,  a  worthy  successor  of  the  crucifixion,  which 
drenched  Europe  with  blood  for  nearly  three  hundred 
years,  gave  a  new  version  of  man's  Christianity,  but 
it  had  no  more  of  love  in  it  than  the  old,  but  less 
of  liberty  for  the  masses,  who,  then  as  now,  want  their 
•thinking  done  for  them;  less  of  art,  less  of  beauty, 
less  of  poetry. 

The  Reformation  was  fought  out  for  private  judg- 
ment's sake  but  just  as  soon  as  it  had  established  it- 
self, it  showed  the  stuff  it  was  made  of.  Like  the 
old  it  was  man's  conception.  The  private  judgment 
cry  had  served  its  purpose  and  then  went  to  the  winds 
after  it  had  foisted  upon  mankind  another  spurious 
Christianity,  a  dogma  so  devoid  of  love  and  liberty 
that  the  new  fetters  galled  infinitely  more  than  the 
old,  and  could  only  be  fastened  upon  northern  peo- 
ples living  under  inclement  skies.  Under  the  old  the 
masses  had  absolute  freedom,  neither  heaven  nor  hell 
concerned  them.     They  gained  the  one  and  escaped 

322 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

the  other  for  a  price,  while  the  sensuous  side  of  their 
nature  was  satisfied  with  beauty  and  gorgeous  cere- 
mony. Under  Calvinism  and  Knoxism  everything 
was  taken  and  nothing  given  in  return.  All  liberty 
was  completely  wiped  out,  all  beauty  destroyed,  all 
grace,  all  joy  of  living,  while  an  avenging  God,  as 
loveless,  as  cruel  as  its  founders  kept  watch  and  ward 
over  every  word  and  act  and  harmless  pleasure  of 
His  victims. 

Under  Roman  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  alike 
people  were  driven  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth 
to  find  some  corner  where  body  and  soul  might  find 
rest  from  the  terroi-s  of  a  distorted  Christianity. 
America  and  white  Africa  were  born  of  religious  per- 
secution. Little  wonder  Christ  said  as  He  turned  to 
the  weeping  women  who  were  following  Him  with 
broken  hearts  and  crushed  spirits  to  the  crucifixion 
because  they  were  so  powerless  to  save  Him, 
"Daughters  of  Jerusalem,  weep  not  for  me,  but  weep 
for  yourselves  and  for  your  children.  For,  behold, 
the  days  are  coming,  in  which  they  shall  say,  blessed 
are  the  barren,  and  the  wombs  that  never  bear,  and 
the  paps  that  never  gave  suck."  Well  did  Christ 
know  that  she  alone  would  have  to  drink  of  the  cup 
that  He  was  drinking,  for  only  love  could  taste 
its  dregs.  Woman  has  not  only  been  the  victim  of 
man's  domination  in  her  own  person,  but  infinitely 
worse  than  that,  for  every  sorrow  that  touched  man 

338 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

that  is  born  of  woman  has  crushed  her  soul.  Yet  she 
dared  not  open  her  lips  nor  have  a  voice  in  the  laws 
that  controlled  the  lives  and  souls  of  those  who  came 
into  being  through  her  suffering.  Love  was  silenced 
that  pugnacity  and  selfishness  might  rule  uncontrolled 
and  unrestrained. 

For  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  Protestantism 
which  claimed  liberty  as  its  foundation  stone  has  read 
its  Testament  and  preached  a  doctrine  of  eternal 
punishment,  of  brimstone,  of  the  fire  that  is  never 
quenched  and  the  worm  that  never  dies.  It  has 
hugged  that  doctrine  to  its  bosom  and  scented 
heresies,  and  no  man  dare  occupy  its  pulpits  and 
hint  at  the  broader  hope  plainly,  even  to-day.  Its 
preachers  ' '  roared  sinners  into  repentance  and  women 
into  convulsions,"  and  led  its  votaries  to  seek  heaven 
only  that  they  might  escape  the  pangs  of  hell.  Mean- 
while the  ''fields  were  white  to  the  harvest"  and  the 
hungry  were  driven  from  its  doors,  for  they  wanted 
bread  and  they  were  "given  a  stone."  It  is  well 
within  forty  years  that  the  church  has  learned  to 
preach  the  Gospel  of  love,  and  it  would  not  know  its 
alphabet  to-day  if  woman  had  not  wrought  out  her 
own  freedom,  and  become  the  guider  and  to  some 
extent  the  controller  of  man. 

The  whole  Christian  church  even  to-day  teaches 
the   monstrous  doctrine,   a  relic   of  muscle,   of  the 

324 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

penal  sufferings  of  Christ,  of  a  divine  and  loving 
father,  a  God  of  mercy  and  compassion,  sending  His 
Son  into  the  world  that  He  might  be  put  to  a  cruel, 
ignominious  death  to  save  humanity.  Man  cannot 
interpret  a  Gospel  of  love  except  through  a  Gospel  of 
phj'sical  force,  and  in  his  blind  gropings  after  the 
spiritual  he  has  magnified  the  incidental,  the  political 
assassination,  brought  about  by  the  jealousy  of  the 
priestly  and  intellectual  caste  of  Judea,  till  it  has 
become  his  measurement  of  the  mercy  and  power  of 
the  divine.  But  the  shedding  of  innocent  blood  never 
has  and  never  can  save  a  sinner.  It  is  the  Christ  love 
for  suffering  humanity,  it  is  the  beauty  of  holiness, 
it  is  the  example  of  the  perfect  life  that  draws  men 
unto  Him,  it  is  the  "fruit  of  the  spirit  which  is  love, 
joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness,  faith,  meekness, 
temperance,  which  was  sealed  by  the  blood  of  the 
incarnate  Son  of  God." 

Christ's  Christianity  is  only  beginning  to  be 
grasped  by  the  church  and  as  this  new  Gospel  of  love 
which  is  now  extending  its  influence  everywhere  and 
is  giving  promise  of  working  out  the  social  and  moral 
regeneration  of  mankind,  is  co-eval  with  the  ascend- 
ance of  woman,  her  humanising  influence  over  man's 
nature,  her  dominance  over  his  mind  and  spirit,  it 
is  the  inevitable  and  unavoidable  inference  that  until 
she  was  able  to  deliver  the  message  given  to  her  by 

325 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

the  angel  at  the  empty  sepulchre,  ''Go  tell"  and  the 
Master's  own,  ''All  hail,"  it  would  never  reach  the 
world. 

One  of  the  most  startling  events  in  the  world's  his- 
tory and  certainly  the  most  unique  was  done  by  a 
woman;  the  delivery  of  France  by  Joan  of  Arc  has 
been  the  perennial  subject  of  discussion  ever  since 
it  happened  some  five  hundred  years  ago.  Wise  men 
and  learned  have  attempted  to  account  for  it,  and 
essay  after  essay  has  been  written  to  solve  the  riddle 
of  her  power,  which  was  but  the  inspirational  faith 
and  belief  in  her  own  country  and  her  own  people, 
and  her  ability  to  impart  this  to  others.  The  maiden 
of  sixteen  who  undertook  this  task  had  been  from  her 
tenderest  years  a  novitiate  into  the  esoteric  doctrine 
of  the  Christ  and  she  believed  Him  who  said 
"Whosoever  shall  say  unto  this  mountain.  Be 
thou  removed  and  be  thou  cast  into  the  sea ;  and  shall 
not  doubt  in  his  heart,  but  shall  believe  that  those 
things  which  he  saith  shall  come  to  pass :  he  shall  have 
whereof  he  saith."  So  it  was  unto  Joan.  In  spite 
of  all  opposition  by  her  father  and  family,  by  the 
generals  of  the  army  and  the  government,  she  carried 
out  her  will.  This  simple,  gentle,  country  shep- 
herdess compelled  all  opposition  to  give  way.  Her 
father  to  whom  she  had  confided  the  divine  summons 
she  had  received  said  to  his  sons,  "If  I  knew  of  your 
sister's  going,  I  would  bid  you  drown  her;  and  if 

326 


WHAT  WOMAN  HAS  DONE 

you  did  not  do  it  I  would  drown  her  myself."  But 
neither  threats  nor  fear  turned  her  from  a  purpose 
which  she  was  unable  to  resist  and  two  of  her  brothers 
went  with  her.  Had  she  consulted  her  own  will, 
"assuredly,"  she  said,  "I  would  far  rather  be  spin- 
ning beside  my  poor  mother,  for  this  other  is  not  my 
condition ;  but  I  must  go  and  do  the  work  because 
my  Lord  wills  that  I  should  do  it." 

She  raised  the  siege  of  Orleans  and  had  the  king 
crowned  at  the  very  moment  when  France  had  given 
up  all  hope  and  was  about  to  become  a  province  of 
England.  And  what  was  the  result?  After  making 
her  path  one  of  difficulties  and  in  the  end  preventing 
her  full  success,  her  own  country,  which  she  had  been 
the  means  of  delivering,  after  subjecting  her  to  a 
long  imprisonment,  handed  her  over  to  the  inquisitors 
who,  after  a  trial  of  five  months,  during  a  part  of 
which  time  she  Avas  kept  in  an  iron  cage,  and  after- 
wards in  a  dark  room  in  a  tower  of  a  castle  with  her 
feet  in  irons,  which  were  fastened  by  a  chain  to  a 
piece  of  wood,  and  watched  over  day  and  night  by 
several  soldiers  of  low  degree,  she  was  finally  handed 
over  to  the  English,  who  burnt  her  as  a  witch  in  the 
market  place  of  Rouen.  Thus  man  has  ever  abused 
her  whose  maternal  instinct  has  brooded  over  the 
earth  and  world,  and  had  it  been  free  would  have  lit 
up  many  a  dark  path  and  loosened  chains. 

327 


IX 

A  LAST  WORD 

The  twentieth  century  of  the  Christian  era  is, 
unless  all  signs  are  false,  going  to  be  women's  cen- 
tury. All  over  the  western  world  even  as  far  towards 
the  Orient  as  Turkey,  yea,  even  in  the  Orient  itself 
women  are,  as  of  one  accord,  gathering  their  forces  to 
fight  the  great  but  bloodless  battle  of  Armageddon, 
for  the  right  to  take  their  place  in  the  world  and  to 
unite  their  endowments  to  those  of  man  for  the 
benefit  of  the  race.  Spasmodically,  here  and  there, 
they  have  asked  before  and  have  been  silenced,  and 
there  are  prophets  among  men  who  prophesy  that 
this  movement  will  go  the  way  of  the  others.  But 
the  gift  of  prophecy  is  as  rare  as  all  other  good  gifts 
while  the  false  and  particularly  the  superficial 
prophets  are  to  be  found  on  every  corner,  and  Christ 
warned  the  world  against  false  prophets :  ' '  Many 
shall  come  in  my  name."  These  superficial  would-be 
leaders,  who  say  that  the  home  is  woman's  place 
and  that  by  an  inherent  law  of  nature  she  cannot 
rise  above  it,  do  not  because  they  could  not  explain 
how  she  has  accomplished  her  present  status  with  all 
the  forces  of  organised  society,  religion,  laws,  institu- 
tion, prejudices,  and  the  vast  body  of  her  own  inert 
sex  opposed  to  her. 

328 


A  LAST  WORD 

The  present  movement  has  all  the  ear-marks  of 
success.  It  differs  from  all  its  predecessors  in  that, 
without  concerted  action  to  begin  with,  it  is  unani- 
mous in  every  land  and  that  the  best  women,  the 
sincere,  earnest,  intellectual,  and  the  real  lovers  of 
humanity  are  behind  it.  It  differs  too,  in  that  con- 
certed action  did  not  take  place  till  women  felt  that 
they  had  fitted  themselves  by  taking  advantage  of 
all  the  opportunities  that  were  open  to  them  to  im- 
prove themselves,  and  by  forcing  others  to  open  that 
were  denied  to  them  they  realised  their  strength  and 
moved  on  to  greater  and  greater  strength  till  at  last 
there  is  no  avenue  in  life  where  their  influence  is 
not  a  de'"iding  factor.     Thus  they  have  realised  and 

attained    tLA    faith    which    bids yonder    mountain 

of  prejudice  to  remove  "and  be  cast  into  the  sea." 
The  cry  that  has  delayed  their  progress  beyond  all 
others  is  the  man  cry  of  "Unwomanly"  and  "Un- 
feminine, "  and  women  are  timid  by  long  inheritance, 
and  accustomed  to  look  at  themselves  only  through 
the  eyes  of  men.  The  real  spirit  that  animates  the 
movement  is  drowned  in  the  noise  of  the  louder  cry 
which,  too  often,  like  "the  loud  laugh  that  speaks  the 
vacant  mind,"  has  nothing  to  stand  on  except  the 
unaccustomed. 

To  be  womanly  and  feminine  from  the  masculine 
point   of   view   is   to   be    flexible,   yielding,    amiable, 

399 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

sweet  in  temperament  which  means  to  be  weak  in 
character,  to  have  no  strong  opinions,  none  certainly 
that  do  not  defer  to  man's,  to  be  clay  in  his  hands 
that  can  be  moulded,  to  give  him  tenderness  and 
affection  but  no  opposition,  to  be  clinging  like  a  ten- 
dril and  by  no  means  to  suggest  vigorous  health,  for 
the  lover  likes  to  feel  that  the  girl  upon  whom  he 
bestows  his  affection  has  to  lean  on  him  and  needs 
his  strong  arm,  though  the  husband  may  see  it  from 
a  different  angle  when  it  means  doctor's  bills,  nurses 
sickly  children  and  an  ill-regulated  home. 

But  this  was  not  the  woman  of  the  matriarchate 
who  brought  the  human  family  so  far  on  its  course 
and  formed  and  held  society  together  with  ^he  bonds 
of  fraternity,  equality  and  liberty;  this  was  not  the 
Roman  matron,  the  mothers  of  those  stern  men  who 
conquered  and  governed  the  world  for  centuries;  nor 
the  Spartan  mothers  who  would  look  on  a  coward  son 
with  horror  and  shame;  nor  the  early  Athenian 
mothers  who  made  the  golden  age  possible;  nor 
Queen  Elizabeth,  who  resisted  every  effort  of  her 
minister  to  involve  her  people  in  war,  when  she  knew 
that  the  health  of  the  country  needed  peace;  nor 
Queen  Victoria  who,  by  her  uncompromising  attitude 
raised  the  moral  well-being  of  every  western  land. 
No  weakness  in  ruling  has  ever  been  associated  with 
that  noble  woman,   for,   again  and  again,  she  over- 

330 


A  LAST  WORD 

ruled  her  advisers  and  saved  the  country  from  pit- 
falls and  dangers  into  which  they  would  have  led  it. 
God's  woman  was  firm,  strong,  resisting  evil,  not 
with  the  sword,  but  in  the  strength  of  right-doing. 
Many  a  brilliant  man  has  paid  a  terrific  penalty  for 
marrying  his  ideal ' '  womanly  woman, ' '  and  his  ' '  grey 
hairs  have  been  brought  with  sorrow  to  the  grave, ' '  be- 
cause he  had  not  a  son  who  inherited  his  qualities 
or  who  rose  above  the  mediocre,  for  it  is  a  matter  of 
common  observation  that  brilliant  men  are  almost 
invariably  the  sons  of  strong-minded,  capable  mothers, 
irrespective  of  what  their  fathers  were.  Thus  does 
nature  protect  her  elect — woman. 

The  care  of  the  race  is  woman's  business,  but  the 
care  does  not  consist  as  man  says  it  does  in  bringing 
them  into  the  world,  nursing  and  clothing  them  till 
they  are  able  to  do  it  themselves.  _  The  care  of  the 
race  begins  with  conception  and  ends  only  with  the 
grave,  nay,  it  begins  with  selection,  for  a  debauched, 
diseased  man  is  not  fit  to  be  husband  and  father  but 
is  the  cause  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  sickness  in 
life  and  of  early  deaths.  The  human  male  is  the 
only  one  who  selects  his  mate  and  he  has  amply  tes- 
tified to  his  incapacity  to  do  it  for  it  is  a  well  recog- 
nised fact  that  under  his  selection  the  race  has 
deteriorated.  The  care  of  the  race  means  the  food, 
the  clothes,  the  schools,  the  social  system,  the  political 

331 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  WOMAN 

system,  the  laws.  The  care  of  the  race  is  the  whole 
of  life  just  as  to  "  love  God  and  thy  neighbour  as  thy- 
self"  is  the  whole  of  law.  It  is  the  multiplication  of 
words  that  obscures  issues  and  blinds  the  eyes. 
"Silence  is  golden."  Less  talk  and  more  thinking 
would  prevent  mistakes  and  retribution. 

The  spirit  that  is  behind  the  movement  is  the  up- 
lifting of  humanity,  the  wiping  out  of  gaols  and 
institutions  for  punishment  and  correction,  that 
mothers'  hearts  may  cease  to  weep  tears  of  blood, 
that  prostitution,  which  is  largely  the  offspring  of  a 
double  moral  code  and  of  economic  conditions,  may 
cease,  that  justice  and  right  may  prevail,  that  happi- 
ness may  be  increased,  that  "Thy  will  be  done 
on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven."  God  never  made  His 
earth  to  be  a  vale  of  tears  with  all  its  potentialities 
for  enjoyment,  its  hills  and  mountains  and  "cloud- 
capped  towers,"  its  dales  and  valleys,  its  sun  and 
moon  and  stars,  its  seas  and  lakes  and  streams  and 
babbling  brooks,  its  trees  and  shrubs  and  flowering 
vines,  its  changing  seasons,  its  gorgeous  colouring  of 
flower  and  sky  and  rock  that  art  can  but  feebly 
imitate,  its  illimitable  supply  of  food  and  fuel  and 
plant,  its  precious  stones,  everything  conceivable  to 
gratify  the  needs  of  man,  to  satisf}^  his  love  of  beauty, 
and  to  lift  him  to  higher  thoughts. 

But  through  selfishness  all  has  been  brought  to 
332 


A  I.AST  WORD 

naught.  Millions  of  human  beings  scarcely  ever  see 
the  sky,  millions  of  others  are  so  burdened  with  toil 
in  the  desperate  struggle  for  food  that  having  "eyes 
they  see  not."  This  was  the  condition  that  was 
inaugurated  with  the  patriarchate,  but  it  is  written 
"the  seed  of  the  woman  shall  bruise  the  serpent's 
head"  and  she  alone  can  cure  it.  This  is  the  message 
of  the  Christ  Gospel,  this  is  the  philosophy  of  His 
ministry',  of  the  IMagdalene  at  the  empty  sepulchre, 
of  the  "Go  tell"  and  the  "All  hail"  and  since  God 
is  with  woman  who  shall  be  against  her. 


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